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HISTORY ^^^»//«„^ 

OP THE 

INSTITUTION OF THE SABBATH DAY, 

ITS USES AND ABUSES; 

WITH 

NOTICES OF THE PURITANS, THE aUAKERSf 

THE 
NATIONAL AND OTHER SABBATH CONVENTIONS, 

AND OF 

THE UNION BETWEEN CHURCH AND STATE. 
BY WILLIAM LOGAN FISHER. 



PHILADELrniA: 

JOHN PENINGTON, 169 CHESTNUT STREET, 
1845., ^ 



^^ 



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Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1845, by 
William Logan Fisher, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for 
the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 



-i^.Xi^ 



E. G. Dorsey, Printer, 
Library Street. 



TsE IriBRAiar 
WASBmenBW 



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-- w ^1 ^ 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PA-GE. 

No Sabbath in the Patriarchal age, - - - 7 

First instituted among the Jews, _ - . 9 

Jewish laws not obligatory on Christians, - - - 24 

The observance of days contrary to the New Testament, 27 

Condemned by Jesus Christ and the Apostles, - - 36 

Not observed by the early Christians, ^ - - 40 

Extract from Justin Martyr, - - - - 41 

Extracts from John Calvin, William Penn, Bishop White, * 
and others, disapproving of the superstitious observance 
of days, -------45 

First law upon the subject by Constantine, i - - 54 
Puritans the first great innovators upon the Christian reli- 
gion relative to the first day of the week, - - 63 
Character of the Puritans, - "^ - - - 73 
GLuakers — their principles and practices, • - - - 84 
William Penn's letter to the Indians, - - - 91 
Three addresses to King Charles II. - - - 96 
Of the true Christian Sabbath — men w^ho deny that to at- 
tend to particular days are idolaters and the real Sab- 
bath-breakers, - - -- - -115 

Misstatements of the National and other Sabbath Conven- 
tions, - - 116 

The influence of the clergy, - - - - 133 

On closing of courts and public oflices, - - 141 

Usurpation of the Postmaster-General, - - - 148 



IV CONTENTS. 

PAGE. 

Ecclesiastical character of the constitutions of the indi- 
vidual states, ------ 152 

Working on the first day of the week allowed to conscien- 
tious men by the constitution and laws of Pennsylvania, 152 
Usurpations of the judiciary, . . - - 155 

Inefficacy of penal statutes, - - - - 158 

Legislature of Pennsylvania has no authority to interdict 
travelling on canals and rail-roads on the first day of the 
week, ------- 160 

Atheists and barbarians may be Christians, - - 165 

Licentiousness probably promoted by the doctrine of the 
clergy, - - - - - - - 170 

Rail-roads and steamboats should furnish increased facili- 
ties for travelling on the first day of the week, - 171 
On the appointment of chaplains, - - - - 175 

Fast-days and Thanksgiving-days cannot be instituted in 

Pennsylvania without a violation of the constitution, 176 

True religion necessarily precludes the observance of any 
particular day, - - - - - -179 

APPENDIX. 

Extract from Bishop White's Lectures on the Catechism, 183 

Duties Towards God, by William Paley, 185 

a Critical and Practical Exposition of the 

Pentateuch, - - - - - - 187 

Extract from the British Critic and Cluarterly Theological 

Review, ------ 190 

Extract from Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History, - - 193 



TO THE FRIENDS OF TRUTH. 

I DEDICATE to you the following pages. It is 
believed there has never been a time since the 
period of Charles I., in which sectarianism has 
been so rife as it is at this moment. Children of 
tender years, and of indiscretion, are inveigled by 
ignorant men, under the pretence that they are 
peculiarly the vicegerents of Heaven, to adopt forms 
and ceremonies of religion which belong rather to 
Paganism than to Christianity. Women, forgetting 
that religion consists in purity of heart, and the 
unostentatious performance of every duty, are ne- 
glecting their families, to seek excitements which 
arise from superstition. Men are led to madhouses 
under delusions as wild as any we read of in his- 
tory. Governors of states are solicited to appoint 
days for public thanksgiving and prayer, where 
such have not been customary. Petitions are pre- 
sented to our legislatures to increase penal statutes 



VI DEDICATION. 

relative to the observance of the first day of the 
week, and a sectarian effort, to accomplish these 
and similar movements, is perceptible throughout 
the country. 

The attempt to make one day more holy than 
another, is alike contrary to the spirit and to the 
letter of the New Testament, and is adverse to 
those pure principles of religion which call for a 
daily practice of virtue, and on which the welfare 
of society must ultimately depend. 

In the reign of Charles I., one of the great levers 
of action was an excitement upon this subject. 
Liberty of conscience was denied, and it was car- 
ried so far, that it was deemed unlawful to walk 
in the streets or in the fields to take fresh air on 
Sunday. 

It may be said that we shall be saved from simi- 
lar excesses by the general enlightenment of the 
age; but of what avail is this, if public opinion, 
upon which this hope is founded, is debased. Not- 
withstanding any supposed improvement, we must 
expect from every age fruit according to its nature, 
and that nature is determined in part by the thou- 



DEDICATION. Vll 

sand acts by which bigotry operates upon igno- 
rance. 

We cannot forget that we have recently seen 
fires kindled by the torch of the sectarian, and pub- 
lic opinion for a time too powerful, in defence of 
the acty for the hand of civil government. 

The following work has been prepared amid 
many engagements. My object has been to expose 
errors which are deeply rooted and of long con- 
tinuance. 

" There is nothing true but truth.^' 

To that I appeal to sustain the views which I have 
advanced. 

In the repetition of words, I have sometimes 
used the terms Sabbath, Religion, etc. in their 
popular signification, but I have endeavoured, as 
occasion presented, to exhibit what I conceive to 
be their true meaning. 

W. L. F. 

Wakefield^ Philadelphia County , 1845 



HISTORY 



OF THE 



INSTITUTION OF THE SABBATH DAY. 



There having lately come under my observation 
the "Proceedings of the State Sabbath Convention, 
held at Harrisburg/^ and "Permanent Sabbath 
Documents/^ printed in Boston, together with 
several other works upon the subject of the Sab- 
bath, so at variance with the view of it which I 
have considered correct, that I am induced to en- 
deavour to give a short outline of the institution, for 
the information of those who may not have had 
leisure to examine for themselves. In the course 
of the exposition I expect to be able to show — 

First. That keeping one day more holy than 
another, is alike contrary to the spirit and to the 
letter of the New Testament, and at variance with 
the practice of the early Christians. 
1 



6 INSTITUTION OF THE 

Second, That the ten commandments and all 
the Jewish code have been abrogated. 

Third, That those sects which have been most 
distinguished for the observance of the Sabbath 
day, were the nriost ceremonial in their systems of 
religious injunctions. 

Fourth, That the statements made by Sabbath 
conventions are not to be relied upon. 

Fifth, That any legislation upon the subject is 
a re-union of church and state. 

We live in a country of sectarian prejudices, and 
they are not the less manifested, because various 
sects may unite to accomplish a particular object. 
The attempt to make all men conform to one view 
concerning the Sabbath, is partial in its nature, has 
originated in sectarian intolerance, and in ignorance 
of the nature of truth. 

To the observance of the first day of the week 
as a day of rest and relaxation, few persons will be 
found to object; but if there are others who choose 
to employ it in a different manner, to work or to 
travel as it suits them, it is perfectly consistent with 
the Christian religion that they should do so. The 
Sabbath is not a Christian but a Jewish institution. 
It never had any application to any other than the 
Jewish nation. In common with other- Jewish laws, 
it was binding upon the Jews and upon them alone. 

The whole tenor of Christ's mission seems to 



SABBATH DAY. 7 

have been to lead men to practical truth; and it is 
not too much to say, that all the efforts of secta- 
rians to enforce the observance of what they call 
the Christian Sabbath or the Lord's day, as a day 
of peculiar holiness, are anti-christian in their na- 
ture and immoral in their tendency. 

What is true in mechanics is true in morals. If 
we load a machine with unnecessary wheels and 
w^eights, its progress is retarded — it does not do the 
work that it ought to do. So in morals and reli- 
gion, the moment we give them unnecessary forms 
and ceremonies, we retard, in the same degree, the 
simplicity of their motions, and the perfection of 
their characters. 

In the patriarchal age, embracing a period of up- 
wards of 2000 years, in w^hich we have the lives of 
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and their descendants, there 
is no record of the observance of a Sabbath day. 

Irenius and Justin Martyr, men eminent for their 
piety, who lived in the first ages of the Christian 
era, have united in the opinion that no Sabbath was 
observed prior to the Mosaic institution.* The 
works of Justin Martyr are the earliest of which 
any considerable portion has reached our time, and 
they mark the commencement of what has been 
termed ecclesiastical history. He says, "the cere- 

* See Bailey's Dictionary. 



8 INSTITUTION OF THE 

monial law was in truth given to the Jews on ac- 
count of the hardness of their hearts; as a mark of 
God's displeasure at their apostasy, when they made 
the golden calf in Horeb. All its ordinances^ its 
sacrifices, its Sabbath, the prohibition of certain 
kinds of food, were designed to counteract the in- 
veterate tendency of the Jews to fall into idolatry. 
"If,'' says Justin, "we contend that the ceremonial 
law is of universal and perpetual obligation, we run 
the hazard of charging God with inconsistency, as 
if he had appointed difierent modes of justification 
at difierent times; since they who lived before 
Abraham were not circumcised, and they who lived 
before Moses neither observed the Sabbath nor 
oSered sacrifices, although God bore testimony to 
them that they were righteous."* 

It should be considered conclusive upon this sub- 
ject, that in the orders given to erect a tabernacle or 
place of worship to the east of Eden — in those to 
Cain and Abel relative to sacrifice — to Noah to 
sacrifice on coming out of the Ark, and to abstain 
from eating blood, and when the institution of cir- 
cumcision was described, not one word should have 
been said respecting the Sabbath. 

* The works of Justin Martyr, in the original language, are 
before me, but I have made use of the translation of the Bishop 
of Lincoln, in his ''Account of the Writings and Opinions of 
Justin." Page 22. 



SABBATH DAY. ' 9 

An attempt has been made to remove the objec- 
tion which arises from this omission, by asserting 
that from the notoriety of the custom it was unne- 
cessary, and from the circumstance that circumci- 
sion was not named from the settlement of the 
Israelites in Canaan, down to the circumcision of 
Jesus Christ. But this argument the whole of the 
17th chapter of Genesis completely refutes. All 
the circumstances therein detailed evidently shew 
that it had not been commonly used before that 
time. If the observance of the Sabbath had been 
a common thing, like circumcision, it would have 
been named without further notice, as circumcision 
is named when Jesus is circumcised. The difference 
in the treatment of the two cases is manifest. 

Beausobre, an eminent French protestant, in his 
introduction to the New Testament, expressly ad- 
mits and gives his reasons for his opinion, that the 
Sabbath was not instituted until the time of Moses.* 

It was 215 years from the time Jacob and his 
retinue settled in Goshen in Egypt until the period 
when the Israelites finally left that country. During 
all this time there is no mention of the Sabbath 
day. It is first spoken of in the wilderness, on 
their journey to the land of Canaan, when they had 
manna given to them for food. On the sixth day 

* Horse Sabbaticge, 



10 • INSTITUTION OF THE 

they found twice the quantity as on any other day. 
The account speaks of it as so extraordinary a cir- 
cumstance, that all the rulers of the congregation 
came and told Moses. They seemed to be alto- 
gether at a loss to know why it should be thus; 
they had then been on their journey more than 
forty days, and it is believed that this astonishment 
would not have been manifested if they had been 
familiar with the institution. Afterwards, at Mount 
Sinai, it was more expressly spoken of; but all the 
evidence goes to shew, that it was never known as 
an institution before this period. 

The prophet Nehemiah says, "Thou camest down 
also upon Mount Sinai, * * * * and madest known 
unto them thy holy Sabbath, and commandest them 
precepts, statutes and laws by the hand of Moses 
thy servant.'^ Chap. ix. 13, 14. 

The bishop of Lincoln, in speaking of Selden's 
work, "De Jure Naturali,'^ says, that he has col- 
lected all that can be found on the interesting sub- 
ject of the institution of the Sabbath. His inves- 
tigations shew the most extensive research. The 
work is old and of rare occurrence, and appears to 
have been written without sectarian bias of any 
kind. 

He takes the same view of the subject, and says 
the institution was first given to the Jews at Marah 
in the wilderness, after leaving Egypt. That it 



SABBATH DAY. 11 

was a Sign between God and the Jews, and that the 
Jewish writers maintain that it is not binding upon 
the Gentiles.* Paley, who has examined the sub- 
ject with considerable care, advocates the same 
views.t 

A mistranslation is said to have taken place in 
the 23d verse of the 16th chapter of Exodus, where 
it says, 'Ho-morrow is the rest of the holy Sab- 
bath.'' This might seem to imply, from using the 
word "the,^^ that the institution had been known 
before, whereas the indefinite article ought to have 
been used; the text would then read "to-morrow is 
a rest of a holy Sabbath;" and this would not imply, 
as the other does, that the institution had ever been 
in use prior to this period. It is said that no He- 
brew scholar will for a moment doubt the correct- 
ness of what is here said, concerning the use of the 
definite article, as that is not one of the points upon 
which there has been any dispute. The same ob- 
servation is said to apply to Exodus xx. 10, where, 
instead of saying "the seventh day is the Sabbath 
of the Lord thy God," it would be a correct trans- 
lation to say, "the seventh day shall be a Sabbath 
of the Lord thy God." 



* See "De Jure Naturali," edition 1665, 13th and following 
chapters, 
t See Paley's Moral Philosophy. 



12 INSTITUTION OF THE 

These small criticisms are only material, as tend- 
ing to prove the incorrectness of those who seem 
willing to believe, not only that the Sabbath w^as 
used in the patriarchal age, but also by the Jews 
during their sojourn in Egypt. 

I am not aware that any thing which may be 
deemed authentic, can be found to confirm this opi- 
nion. It was at Mount Sinai in the wilderness that 
keeping a Sabbath was first made a law to the Jews, 
and it was repeated at different times, "Six days 
may work be done, but in the seventh is the Sabbath 
of rest, holy unto the Lord: whosoever doeth any 
work in the Sabbath day, he shall surely be put to 
death. "Wherefore the children of Israel shall 
keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath through- 
out their generations, for a perpetual covenant.^^ 

"It is a sign between me and the children of 
Israel forever: for in six days the Lord made 
heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested 
and was refreshed. '^^ 

Again: "Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and 
six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and gather 
in the fruit thereof; but in the seventh year shall be 
a Sabbath of rest unto the land, a Sabbath for the 
Lord: thou shalt neither sow thy field, nor prune 
thy vineyard. That which grovveth- of its own 

* Exodus xxxi. 15. 16, 17. 



SABBATH DAY. 13 

accord of thy harvest thou shalt not reap, neither 
gather the grapes of thy vine undressed: for it is a 
year of rest unto the land.'^* 

After seven Sabbath years there was still to be 
another year of rest, called the year of jubilee, in 
which liberty and restitution were to be pro- 
claimed. 

This has always seemed to me the most beautiful 
part of the Jewish policy. No matter how unwise 
or unfortunate (as the term is) families or indi- 
viduals may have been, the jubilee year restored to 
them their possessions. 

If Christians are bound to observe the Jewish 
Sabbath, they are bound also to observe the Sab- 
batical year and the year of jubilee. 

Many of the laws of the Jews appear enlightened, 
some of them trifling, and others we are unable to 
understand. Among them we find the following : 
"Thou shalt not wear a garment of divers sorts, as 
of woollen and linen together.'^ "Thou shalt make 
thee fringes upon the four quarters of thy vesture 
wherewith thou coverest thyself.^^t And others of 
the same character. 

These laws were no doubt applicable to the Jews, 
but while we know so little of their policy we are 
unable to understand them. 

* Lev. XXV. 3, 4, 5. + Deuteronomy xxii. 11, 12. 



14 INSTITUTION OF THE 

The particular kind of cultivation that obtains in 
parts of several states in this Union, requires that 
the land should have rest every third year. They 
neither sow nor reap, nor gather its produce. It is 
as complete a Sabbath of rest to the soil as ever was 
observed in the land of Judah, and probably from 
the same cause: and the reason for the establishment 
of a Sabbath day among the Jews, would perhaps 
be found in the necessity of rest on their journey, 
in their diet, or mode of employment. They fed 
upon food less savory than that of the present day; 
acrimonious fruits and vegetables have been suc- 
ceeded by those of a bland and nutritious character. 
Man can no more be worked beyond the nutriment 
that he receives, and the powers of nature, than a 
horse or an inanimate machine. 

The operations of nature go on unceasingly — the 
sun rises, and the rain descends, and the trees put 
forth their buds and their fruits; the birds and the 
beasts, impelled by that power which we call in- 
stinct, are found performing their labour every day 
in the year, and man is as able to do the same as the 
inferior creation. 

In all those employments where the exercise is 
moderate, man may work every day from year to 
year, without the slightest injury. Where the work 
is severe, he requires rest and recreation just in pro- 
portion thereto. 



SABBATH DAY. 15 

Thus in many kinds of business eight hours is as 
much as any man can work in the twenty-four; in 
particular branches he is relieved regularly at that 
period — in others, in proportion to the work he 
performs. 

If we knew more of the history of the Jews, we 
should probably find some motive for the institu- 
tion of the Sabbath which does not now appear. 
There are two reasons given in the Bible. First : 
It was to be an everlasting sign and covenant be- 
tween God and the children of Abraham, that they 
might know that He was the Lord that did sanctify 
them.^ But in Deuteronomy a diflferent cause is 
assigned; it is there spoken of as a remembrance 
that "thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and 
that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence 
through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm.'^t 
This clearly implies that it was not observed while 
the Jews were in Egypt, because while they were 
yet there they had not been brought out. Appian, 
one of the most eminent writers in the first cen- 
tury of the Ronran empire, mentions that the Jews 
found such dreadful ulcers in their lower extremi- 
ties, that they were obliged to stop and rest them- 
selves, and from thence came the institution of the 
Sabbath. 

* Exodus xxxi. 13. t Dent. v. 15, 



16 INSTITUTION OF THE 

Josephus, in his work against Appian, denies this 
statement; but apart from all authority, nothing 
could be more probable than that after travelling in 
a warm climate, they should find sores on their feet, 
and that a day of rest should be absolutely neces- 
sary to them. 

The truth of this cannot now be ascertained ; but 
if the latter text is true, it is in itself a proof that 
the Sabbath has no relation to us. Neither we nor 
our forefathers were servants in the land of Egypt; 
we are of the Gentile stock; and as to its being a 
sign and covenant, as is spoken of in Exodus, so 
also is circumcision; that was to be*an everlasting 
sign and covenant between God and the children of 
Abraham. They both stand upon the same footing, 
and there is as much authority for the continuance 
of the one as of the other. 

In Exodus xxxi. 13, 14, also in other places, the 
Sabbath is as expressly confined to the children of 
Israel as words can make it: ^^ Speak thou also unto 
the children of Israel, saying, Verily my Sabbaths 
ye shall keep; for it is a sign between me and you 
throughout your generations; that ye may know 
that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you.'' "It 
is holy unto you,^^ "It is a sign between me and 
the children of Israel forever.'' Tha same ideas 
are expressed in Exodus xxxv. 2, 3, Leviticus xxiii. 
3, and xv. 25. In consideration of these passages. 



SABBATH DAY. 17 

it is not easy to understand how any unbiassed 
mind, can, for a moment, believe that an institution 
so expressly commanded for the Israelites, should 
be intended to apply to the whole world; or how 
Nehemiah, in the text already referred to, could 
have spoken of the Sabbath as first made known to 
them when Moses came down from Mount Sinai, 
if it had been known before, or had been designed 
for any other people. 

The prophet Ezekiel says, "Wherefore I caused 
them to go forth out of the land of Egypt, and 
brought them into the wilderness; and I gave them 
my statutes and shewed them my judgments, which 
if a man do he shall even live in them. Moreover, 
I gave them my Sabbaths, to be a sign between me 
and them, that they might know that I am the Lord 
that sanctify them.'^"^ 

The Bible refers, in many instances, to the vices 
of the Gentiles; but among these it is never once 
intimated that they had neglected the observance 
of the Sabbath day. The reason seems obvious, 
the law in regard to the Sabbath had no application 
to them. 

People who are not acquainted with biblical 
criticism, would be astonished to see the abundant 
instances of interpolation and mutilation, which 

* Ezekiel xx. 10, 11, 12. 



IS INSTITUTION OF THE 

have been discovered by pious men, searching after 
the truth in the Scriptures. 

Some books referred to in the text are altogether 
wanting. In others, whole chapters and verses are 
missing; other parts are directly in opposition to 
each other; others again are mixed up with heathen 
mythology of various kinds. I believe there can 
be no doubt of the truth of this in any candid en- 
quiring mind.* 

It is riot surprising that it should be so, consider- 
ing the interest that sectarians have had in pervert- 
ing texts to sustain their own dogmas; but it should 
lead to great caution in founding particular theories 
upon insulated parts of the Scriptures. It has been 
for thousands of years maintained, without much 
contradiction, that this world was created but about 
six thousand years ago. A more attentive observa- 
tion of the indications of nature, made only during 
the present generation, has led to the general belief, 
founded chiefly upon geological truths, that this is 
not correct, that the world may have existed my- 
riads of years; and that some latitude of construc- 
tion must be given in the accounts of days and 
times recorded in the Old Testament relative to the 



* Among many other works I may refer to De Wette on the 
Old Testament, translated by Theo. Parker, which contains a 
vast amount of biblical erudition and research. 



SABBATH DAY. 19 

foundation of the world : and it may be presumed 
that the history of God having created the world in 
six days and resting on the seventh and being re- 
freshed, is to be considered rather as figurative than 
as being entitled to a strict literal construction. I 
believe there is no doubt that the whole account 
was written by Moses several thousand years after 
it happened. 

The Rabbins have enumerated more than thirty 
difierent acts as unlawful for the Jews on the Sab- 
bath day. They were forbidden to sow or to reap, 
to kindle a fire or to extinguish it, to expose any- 
thing for sale, to write or to scratch out; and many 
other things too numerous to mention. A fresh 
wound was not to be bound up on the Sabbath day; 
if a Jew fell down in the dirt, he was not to rise 
up; if he was overtaken on a journey, no matter 
where, he was not to stir from the spot; if he fell 
into a pit, he was not to be removed. 

The day was observed with different degrees of 
severity by the various sects of the Jewish nation, 
and at different eras. At the time of the Macca- 
bees, the nation would not defend itself from the 
attacks of its enemies on the Sabbath; and it sus- 
tained so much injury thereby that Josephus relates 
a change of policy in this respect.^ One prominent 

* JosephuSj vol. II. chap. 12. 



20 INSTITUTION OF THE 

feature was everywhere apparent, an entire relaxa- 
tion from labour; no cooking was permitted, but 
still it was a day of feasting, and not of fasting; of 
joy, and not of austerities. 

The text says expressly, "Whosoever doeth any 
work on the Sabbath day, he shall be put to death/' 
Now the Jewish law is either binding on Christians 
or it is not. If it is, the penalty for disobedience 
is plain and direct, "he shall surely be put to 
death.'' 

It would be a new thing in jurisprudence for 
people to be allowed to take one part of the law, 
that suited their own convenience, and reject the 
rest; they must take the whole or none. Yet sec- 
tarians, who pretend to sustain the Sabbath day, say 
the law for its observance is binding, yet that the 
penalty does not attach to it. I leave it to them to 
reconcile such discrepancies. 

But this is not all: after having rejected the 
penalty which awaited its violation, they attach to 
it another which is not to be found in the text — 
that is, everlasting misery. Retribution in a life to 
come, is not one of the penalties denounced for a 
violation of the laws of the Old Testament. The 
Jewish policy was altogether of a temporal and 
outward nature; the doctrine of a future- state is not 
to be found in the Mosaic code. 

Warburton, one of the most learned bishops of 



SABBATH DAY. 21 

England, has proved this truth, as he thinks, con- 
clusively, in a large work of several volumes.* 

Thus it will appear that these zealous sectarians 
are moulding the Scriptures relative to the institu- 
tion, taking from it in one part and putting on in 
another, to suit their own unhallowed prejudices. 

The Bible also says, "Ye shall kindle no fire 
throughout your habitations on the Sabbath day." 
I ask these sectarians, who are unsparing in their 
denunciations of those who do not observe the Sab- 
bath as a holy day according to their own opinions, 
whether they are quietly eating their meals, drink- 
ing their tea and coffee, made by fires kindled in 
direct opposition to the decree relative to the Sab- 
bath day? I have been told by one of the most 
learned doctors of the Presbyterian church, that 
this is the case. Then they are as surely desecrating 
the Sabbath as those whom they condemn. 

It was wise in the late "Sabbath Convention" at 
Harrisburg not to attempt precisely to define what 
a desecration of the Sabbath was. If they had 
touched this subject, probably no two persons would 
have been found to agree. They could unite in con- 
demning the Sunday boatmen on the canals, the 
Sunday travellers; but if they had been asked 
strictly to define what a desecration of the Sabbath 

* Divine Legation of Moses. 
2* 



22 INSTITUTION OF THE 

meant, one would have said one thing — another, 
another. The most "spirited debate^^ that occurred 
at that assembly, appears to have been, as to the 
term that should be used to distinguish the first day 
of the week — whether it should be called " Sabbath,'^ 
"the Christian Sabbath,'' or "Lord's day." The 
reason of this dispute was, that there was no au- 
thority for calling the first day of the week by 
either one of those names. 

The command to the Jews contained in the Deca- 
logue to observe the Sabbath day, related entirely 
to the Jewish Sabbath, which was the seventh day 
of the week; and if it is binding, it is the seventh 
day that should be kept. To pretend that that com- 
mand was fixed and unchangeable, and yet to alter 
it to please the fancy of men, is in itself ridiculous. 
But, considering that the precepts contained in w^hat 
is called the Decalogue, are believed by many 
people to have an authority which does not belong 
to the other Mosaic laws, and to be of perpetual 
moral obligation, binding upon Christians, I may 
observe, that the ten commandments furnish within 
themselves conclusive evidence, that they do not 
belong to the Christian code. 

The third commandment is in these words, 
"Thou shalt not take the name of th^ Lord thy 
God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guilt- 
less that taketh his name in vain." The simple 



SABBATH DAY. 23 

meaning of this is, that thou shall not profane thine 
oaths. 

Among the Jews all the public testimonies were 
ratified by an oath. In a discourse concerning pub- 
lic oaths and the lawfulness of swearing, by Doctor 
Gauden, Bishop of Exeter, there is the following 
passage: '^It is clear then some swearing is morally 
lawful, agreeable to the express law of God; even 
in the third commandment, in which w^e are not 
only forbidden to profane the name of God, but 
the affirmative also is included, as sanctifying his 
name by swearing, if in doing thus upon just occa- 
sion, private or public, we sin not against any moral 
law."* Whether the sentiment is true or false, it 
is evident that this commandment was expressly 
alluded to and condemned by Christ in his sermon 
on the Mount: ^^Ye have heard that it has been said 
by them of old time, thou shalt not forswear thy- 
self, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths: 
but I say unto you, swear not at all; neither by 
heaven, for it is God's throne; nor by the earth, 
for it is his footstool. "f Persons who are curious 
upon the subject, may see that biblical writers refer 
to these two parts of the Scriptures as being con- 
nected together. If the declaration of Christ does 



* Discourse Concerning Public Oaths, p. 27. 
t Matthew v. 33, 34. 



24 INSTITUTION OF THE 

refer to it, and I think there can be no doubt of it, 
sectarians of the present day, in attempting to make 
the ten commandments a moral law of perpetual 
obligation, are violating one of the plainest and 
most positive precepts of Jesus Christ. 

"Honour thy father and thy mother, that thy days 
may be long in the land'^ — this is Judaism, but not 
Christianity. Christianity is pursuing virtue for 
virtue's sake. There is hardly a Christian of any 
refinement of feeling, that would be willing to ac- 
knowledge that he honoured his father and mother 
that his days might be long in the land. Many 
generations ago, there appeared at Alexandria a 
woman with dishevelled hair, bearing a pitcher of 
water in one hand, and a torch in the other, making 
this exclamation: "I will burn up the heavens with 
this torch, and extinguish the fires of hell with this 
water, that man may love his God for himself 
alone.''* 

Again: "Thou shalt not make unto thee any 
graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is 
in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath, or 
that is in the water under the earth." * 

Is this a moral law of perpetual obligation, bind- 
ing upon Christians, and which we are continually 
violating by making to ourselves the likenesses of 

* Percy Anecdotes. 



SABBATH DAY. 25 

every thing on the earth, and under the earth, that 
is worthy of observation? 

And some sects make images and bow down to 
them, and think that therein they do God service. 

The same outward nature of the Jewish laws is 
again exemplified in the declaration, "I the Lord 
thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity o£ 
the fathers upon the children unto the third and 
fourth generations of them that hate me.'^ 

The homely primer distich, 

In Adam's fall 
We sinned all, 

has been repeated a thousand times in a thousand 
ways, by the most learned as well as the most ig- 
norant; but whatever men may say to the contrary, 
all seem practically to reject the idea, that as 
respects the great ends of existence, children suffer 
for the sins of their forefathers, who lived perhaps 
hundreds of years before them. It may have a 
physical application, but it makes no part of the 
Christian code. 

And is it Christianity to repeat the idea, ^^I the 
Lord thy God am a jealous God?^^ This language 
suited Moses, but it does not so well apply to us. 

There are immutable truths contained in the ten 
commandments, but they belong to those universal 
principles that are found among mankind the world 



26 INSTITUTION OF THE 

over, and that existed before the Bible was written. 
Their spirit pervades the Old as well as the New 
Testament — they are intuitive in their nature — 
they are the foundation of all order, of all law, of 
all truth. Were it possible to do them away, moral 
society would come to an end. We believe in them, 
not because they may be written in the ten com- 
mandments, or in the New or the Old Testament, 
but because they carry their own evidence, bring 
conviction to every bosom; and it shows the de- 
graded nature of sectarianism, that it should at- 
tempt to place among these universal moral truths, 
the local Mosaic law, to observe the Sabbath day; a 
law so partial and limited in its nature, that upon 
the details of its application, the Jews themselves, 
for whom it was instituted, could not agree. The 
laws of morality pervade the Alkoran of Mahomet 
and the pandects of Justinian. Shall we thence 
take these for our text books, and be bound there- 
by ? Surely they are just as obligatory upon us as 
the law of Moses! 

There are still other reasons given to sustain 
what is called the Christian Sabbath. It is said the 
resurrection took place on the first day of the 
week, and that the meetings of the disciples were 
held on that day; and it is argued thence, not only 
that it sanctifies the day, but that it constitutes the 
authority for the change from the Jewish to what 



SABBATH DAY. 27 

is called the Christian Sabbath. The texts upon 
this subject require attention, because they have 
been so singularly perverted by the Sabbatarians, 
to prove their own particular doctrines. 

It is necessary for us to understand the Jewish 
computation of time, "the evening and the morning 
were the first day;" and the express law of Moses 
says, "from even until even shall you celebrate 
your Sabbaths." There are many different modes 
of computing time; we begin our day at 12 o'clock 
at night, nautical men at 12 o'clock at noon; some 
nations begin the day at sunrise, and the Jews at 
6 o'clock in the afternoon. The first account of 
the meeting of Jesus with his disciples after the 
resurrection, is in John xx. 19: "Then the same 
day at evening, being the first day of the week, 
w^hen the doors were shut where the disciples were 
assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and 
stood in the midst, and saith unto them. Peace be 
unto you." If the account had simply stated, "on 
the first day at evening," w^ithout any other re- 
ference, the argument would have been complete 
that this meeting was on the first day; but it says 
that it was the same day as the resurrection, which 
appears to have taken place early in the morning of 
the first day of the week ; the whole context shews 
that it was the evening after the morning of the first 
day of the week; and this, according to the Jewish 



n 



28 INSTITUTION OF THE 



computation of time, was the commencement of the 
second day, and we have no right to adopt any 
other. Hence it conclusively follows, that this meet- 
ing took place on the second day of the week. 

Purver's translation of the Bible, which is before 
me, John xx. 1, uses this language: "Afterwards, 
on the first day after the Sabbath, Mary Magdalen 
comes in the morning,'^ &c. ; and in verse 19th it 
says, "When it was therefore the evening of that 
day, on the first after the Sabbath, the doors being 
shut," &c. This still confirms the same point, that 
this meeting was not on the first day of the week. 

The Puritans, upon their arrival in New England, 
decided, upon solemn debate, that the Mosaic law 
should prevail; and, of course, that the evening of 
the first day on which Jesus met the disciples, was 
not a part of the Christian Sabbath; and it is not 
generally observed as such in New England at the 
present period. 

The second meeting of Jesus with his disciples 
is stated to have been eight days after this, which, 
according to the usual computation, was on the 
second day of the week; and hence it is not true, 
as is asserted, that Jesus met the disciples again on 
the first day. The text, John xx. 26, is explicit on 
this subject; and it thus clearly appears, that neither 
of the meetings of Jesus with his disciples after his 
resurrection, was on the first day of the week; and 






SABBATH DAY. 29 

the authority which sectarians wish to derive from 
this circumstance for the peculiar observance of the 
first day, and which is the result of a forced con- 
struction of Scripture, is altogether wanting. The 
learned Doctor Adam Clark, in his Commentaries, 
referring to the 26th verse, and quoting "after eight 
days,^' says, "It seems likely that this was precisely 
on that day se'nnight on which Christ had appeared 
to them before; and from this we may learn, that 
this was the weekly meeting of the apostles/^ Such 
perversions of plain, direct language, are met with 
on almost every page, wherein Sabbatarians under- 
take to shew the necessity of the observance of the 
first day of the week, as a day of religious exer- 
cises. The object is the maintenance of their own 
particular opinions; if they speak the truth, the 
Scripture does not support them. It is not alone in 
the writings of Doctor Clark that this perversion is 
to be found; Paley and others adopt the same view, 
pretending that eight days after the evening of the 
first day of the week, is again the first day. 

There is another meeting of the disciples spoken 
of in Acts XX. 7, in this wise: "And upon the first 
day of the week, when the disciples came together 
to break bread, Paul preached to them, (ready to 
depart on the morrow,) and continued to preach 
until midnight.'^ This meeting, following still, 
as we are bound to do, the Mosaic computation 
3 



30 INSTITUTION OF THE 

of time, took place on what is now called Saturday, 
after six o'clock in the evening; and, as the text 
says, he was "ready to depart in the morning,'' it 
proves his travelling on the first day of the week, 
and that the Apostle Paul did not keep the first day 
as Sabbatarians contend the Sabbath should be kept. 

There is still another passage, (1st Corinthians 
xvi. 2,) on which Sabbatarians rely to make out 
their case: "Upon the first day of the week, let 
every one of you lay by him in store as God has 
prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I 
come." This text, which says that they are to "lay 
by in store as God has prospered them," has a dis- 
tinct meaning, that they are to reckon up their ac- 
counts on the first day of the week for the week 
preceding, and is directly opposed to a sanctification 
of that day. 

If these texts prove any thing, it is directly the 
reverse of what is attempted to be drawn from them. 
But there are two other points connected with the 
resurrection, which are worthy of all observation 
from men who claim to adhere to a strict literal 
construction of the Scriptures, and which show con- 
clusively, that so far from particularly sanctifying 
the first day of the week, Jesus left, in his conduct, 
the most express testimony against it. We read in 
Luke xxiv. 13-15, that upon the first day of the 
week, two of his disciples went to a village called 



SABBATH DAY. 31 

Emmaus, "which was from Jerusalem about three 
score furlongs/^ * * * « ^j^2^^ "while they communed 
together and reasoned, Jesus himself drew near 
and went with them/' 

A Sabbath day's journey was seven furlongs and 
a half.=* It thus appears that the journey was about 
eight times the distance of what was allowed by the 
Jewish laws, or nearly eight English miles. This 
distance is also sustained by Josephus,t and it was 
travelled directly from Jerusalem, where he had 
been accustomed to meet his disciples. Even 
Bethany, where it is said he led his disciples out, 
and lifted up his hands and blessed them, was fifteen 
furlongs, or two Sabbath days journeys from Jeru- 
salem. J 

I am certainly aware that there is little chance 
that those whose opinions are already formed, will 
be willing candidly to examine the foregoing texts 
with a steady eye to truth; but I may ask reasonable 
men to judge for themselves, and the result I think 
will be, that there is no authority for the substitu- 
tion of the first day^of the week in place of the 
Jewish Sabbath; and I shall shew hereafter that 
there is no authority for the continuance of the 



* Clark's Notes on the ScriptureSj Acts i. 12. 
t See War, book vii. section 6. 
t Clark's Commentaries. 



32 INSTITUTION OF THE 

Jewish Sabbath. John, the Divine, speaks of being 
in the spirit on the Lord^s day, and hence in the 
limited views that are taken of it, and to establish 
particular sectarian notions, it is pretended that the 
visions that he had at the Isle of Patmos, were on 
the first day of the week, and that this is a proof of 
the sanctification of the day. If that day were 
called in Scripture the Lord's day, there might be 
some reason in the application; but it is not called 
so in any part of the Bible. It is much more natu- 
ral to suppose that it is so spoken of, as a particu- 
lar period of illumination of mind, than as having 
relation to any particular day. The word day is 
used in many parts of the Scripture without appli- 
cation to any precise period — thus: '^ To-day, if ye 
will hear his voice,'' &c. — "Abraham desired to see 
my day," &c. The word day in these instances has 
no relation to any particular period of time; and it 
is not necessary to suppose, that all the visions of 
John the Divine, as recorded in the book of Reve- 
lations, were seen on the first day of the week; it 
is much more likely that they embraced many days, 
perhaps weeks and months. 

The whole of the New Testament teems with 
evidence of the truth of the opinions that I have 
expressed. I could appeal to sectarians to establish 
this, but that they may be said not to believe in the 
Scriptures, and they would not be willing to submit 



SABBATH DAY. 33 

the subject to the candid observation of disin- 
terested men. A belief in the Scriptures would be, 
in their plain obvious doctrine, in giving to each 
word and sentence the explanation which was con- 
sistent with the rules of grammar and common 
sense, without prevarication or deception of any- 
kind, and without any reference to the truth or 
falsehood which might be supposed to be involved 
in it. Such a belief in the Scriptures would not 
suit sectarians, it would often prove too much or 
too little for them; it would at once put an end to 
Sabbath conventions. The views they promulgate 
cannot be sustained upon any other principle than a 
disbelief in the doctrines of the New Testament. 
Every respect is due to the opinions of men of 
truth and candour, however much they may be at 
variance with our own; but those of the Sabbata- 
rians are entitled to the less respect, because they 
seem unwilling to listen to the truth upon the sub- 
jects They have often been refuted, but still they 
repeat their assertions, sustaining them by perver- 
sions of texts. Men of deep, abiding prejudices 
cannot believe the truth, however plainly it may 
be brought before them; and it seems a hopeless 
task to make any appeal to them. They reply not 
by argument, but by opinion and denunciation. 

To others I may say, and I wish them to exa- 
mine the subject carefully for themselves, that there 



34 INSTITUTION OF THE 

is not one verse or text contained in the whole 
canon of the New Testament, which recommends 
or inculcates the observance of the first day of the 
week, or any other day, as one of peculiar holiness, 
or as a day to be devoted to religious exercises. 
There is not one word said against Sabbath-breakers, 
nor a single text that gives the slightest idea that it 
was deemed unlawful by Christ, or his immediate 
followers, to do any work on the first day of the 
week, that was proper to be performed on any other 
day. There are some of the Jewish laws expressly 
revived by the apostle Paul; — that we shall abstain 
from blood, and from things strangled, &c. See 
Acts xxi. 25, and xv. 28, But among these, the 
laws relative to the Sabbath day are entirely omit- 
ted. It is singular enough that sectarians should 
pay no attention to this positive prohibition of the 
apostle; that they should eat blood and things 
strangled whenever it suits them to do so; that 
they should reject what has been revived by the 
apostle, and revive what has been expressly re- 
jected by him. See 2nd Colossians 16, 17. "Let 
no man judge you in respect of the Sabbath day.'^ 
It proves what I have adverted to above, that sec- 
tarians do not believe in the Scriptures. 

I shall quote some of the texts upon this subject; 
but I may here remark, that the total omission to 
inculcate the observance of any particular day, is in 



SABBATH DAY. 35 

itself proof against it. There are abundant instances 
in which the observance of the moral law was incul- 
cated both by Christ and his apostles, but that one 
thing, upon which so much stress is now laid, is 
entirely omitted. 

Upon all suitable occasions, Jesus opposed the 
superstitions of the Jews respecting the Sabbath 
day. In treating upon the subject we must steadily 
bear in mind the great importance attached to the 
Sabbath in the Jewish policy. There is one in- 
stance of a person who was stoned to death, be- 
cause he was found gathering sticks on the Sabbath 
day.^ There is a story of one Rabbi Solomon, 
who had fallen into a pit, and exclaimed. 

Out of this slough 1 will not rise, 
For Holy Sabbath day I prize. 

I adduce these instances to show the extreme 
rigour of the Jewish law, and the practices under it, 
in relation to the observance of the Sabbath; and it 
is this law, with all its severity, for they cannot be ^ 
separated, which it is now pretended constitutes 
part of the great moral law, binding upon the whole 
world. It is contended by the Sabbatarians, that 
Jesus "religiously observed the Sabbath day;'^f 
they rftake wanton assertions, which they are unable 

* Numbers xv. 

t See proceedings of the Harrisburg Sabbath Convention. 



36 INSTITUTION OP THE 

to prove. He not only did not sanction the observ- 
ance of the day, but his doctrine, his precepts, his 
example, show directly the reverse. Let the texts 
be carefully examined, that the truth may prevail. 

He travelled, as I have before stated, on the first 
day of the week; thus giving, by 'his conduct, after 
his resurrection, direct evidence that he did not 
regard what is now called the Christian Sabbath. 
He also travelled on the Jewish Sabbath;* it might 
have been what was called a Sabbath day's journey, 
which was permitted to the Jews, though it does 
not appear so by the text. 

I ask these sectarians how it is, that, with the 
New Testament in their hand, and taking that for 
their guide, they can condemn people for doing just 
what Jesus did ? 

He visited on the Sabbath. I have examined 
several translations relative to the account of this, 
recorded in Luke xiv. 1. The venerable Charles 
Thomson, secretary to the continental congress, 
told the author of these pages, that he had written 
every line in the Bible, from Genesis to Revela- 
tions, five different times with his own hands, in 
order to make his translation perfect. He takes a 
broader ground than any of the rest, and uses these 
words, "Observing how eager the guests were for 

* Mark ii. 23. 



SABBATH DAY. 37 

the first places at table, he addressed them/' &c. 
In verse 12, his translation says, "Then he said to 
him who had invited him,'' &c. : one translation says, 
"He went to eat bread;" another, "to eat victuals;" 
another, simply "to eat." The distinctions are not 
material, but the text altogether shews this, that 
Jesus was invited on the Sabbath day to the house 
of one of the chief Pharisees; that the company 
was so large that different rooms were opened, and 
that there was what would be called in this country 
a rush to get seats at the table. As there is not the 
slightest intimation, that the invitation of this com- 
pany on the Sabbath day, was improper in any waf^, 
it is sufficient, in connection with other things of 
the same character, to shew how little dependence 
is to be placed upon the statements of these Sabba- 
tarians. 

I have before me one of their publications, which 
says, "Visiting and travelling are enormous profa- 
nations of this holy day." I have stated that Jesus 
visited, and that Jesus travelled; they cannot con- 
trovert it; and if their position is true, I leave it to 
them to make the application. 

The Jewish law says, "Take heed to yourselves 
and bear no burden on the Sabbath day;*" yet in 
direct contradiction of this, the man who was healed 

♦ Jeremiah xvii. 21, 32. 



38 INSTITUTION OP THE 

was directed by Jesus to take up his bed and walk 
on the Sabbath day; and it is stated that the Jews 
sought to kill him, because he had thus broken the 
Sabbath. There are other instances of the same 
character, all directly opposed to the doctrines of 
the Sabbatarians. 

Besides these negative proofs, there are a variety 
of positive texts in the New Testament, wbich 
seem to forbid, not only the observance of the 
Jewish Sabbath, but which cover the whole ground, 
and object to the observance of any one day as a 
day of peculiar holiness. It would take many pages 
to recount them all; I quote some of the most ma- 
terial. 

"But now after y^ have known God, or rather 
are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak 
and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again 
to be in bondage? Ye observe days and months, and 
times, and years. I am afraid of you, lest I have 
bestowed upon you labour in vain.^^* Again : "Let 
no man therefore judge you in meat or in drink, or 
in respect of an holy day, or of the new moon, or of 
the Sabbath days, which are a shadow of things to 
come.^'t 

As to the words, "The Sabbath was made for 
man,^^ which seems to be a very favourite quota- 
tion, for the want of anything better, if Sabbata- 

* Galatians iv. 9-11. t Col. ii. 16, 17. 



SABBATH DAY. 39 

rians would not garble the whole context, it would 
shew, that it was part of an absolute reproof to the 
Jews for their superstitious regard to the day. 

I subjoin the whole of it, that there may be no 
mistake. 

"And it came to pass, that he went through the 
cornfields on the Sabbath day; and his disciples 
began, as they went, to pluck the ears of corn. 
And the Pharisees said unto him. Behold why do 
they on the Sabbath day, that which is not lawful ? 
And he said unto them. Have ye never read what 
David did, when he had need, and was an hungered, 
he, and they that were with him? How he went 
into the house of God in the days of Abiathar the 
high priest, and did eat the show bread, which is 
not lawful to eat, but for the priests, and gave also 
to them which were with him? And he said unto 
them, The Sabbath was made for man, and not man 
for the Sabbath.''* 

I add also the following from John, to which I 
have before alluded : when Jesus had directed the 
man whom he had cured to take up his bed and 
walk, the Jews said unto him, " It is the Sabbath 
day, it is not lawful for thee to carry thy bed.'' "And 
therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus, and sought 
to slay him, because he had done these things on 
the Sabbath day. But Jesus answered them: My 
* Mark ii. 23-27. 



40 INSTITUTION OP THE 

father worketh hitherto, and I work. Therefore 
the Jews sought the more to kill him, because 
he not only had broken the Sabbath, but said also 
that God was his father, making himself equal with 
God/^^ 

Without any of these testimonies, it might be 
believed, a priori^ from the nature of the doctrine 
promulgated by Christ and his apostles, that keep- 
ing one day more holy than the rest, was incom- 
patible with the precepts they taught. Their views 
were of a much holier and more enlarged character. 
It was not to days, or times, or ceremonies, that 
they directed their followers, but to truth, which 
existed independent of them. And there is evi- 
dence, that no Jewish Sabbath, no Christian Sab- 
bath, or Lord^s day, was observed with peculiar 
holiness by the early Christians. 

After the lapse of so many centuries, and with 
very indistinct history of the early Christians, im- 
mediately succeeding the apostolic age, it is impos- 
sible to arrive at any exact conclusions. Enough, 
however, is known to determine one point, that no 
particular rule prevailed, as would have been the 
case had any one day been consecrated by them as 
a day of peculiar holiness. 

There is one remarkable circumstance relative to 
their assemblies, they seem to a great extent to 
* John V. 16-18. 



SABBATH DAY. 41 

have been held in the evenings, or before daylight. 
In the account of the first meeting of Jesus with 
his disciples, after his resurrection^ it is mentioned 
that it was "at evening;'^ it is added, "the doors 
being shut for fear of the Jews/^ So in the letter 
from Pliny, to which I shall advert, the meetings of 
the Christians are said to have been before daj^light. 
Tertullian often mentions the nightly meetings of 
the Christians. There are other repeated notices of 
the same thing. Some of these meetings might 
have been the result of a fear of persecution; but 
the constant practice, in so many countries, together 
with the knowledge that the converts were persons 
almost entirely among the labouring classes of the 
community — men who contributed to their necessi- 
ties by the labour of their own hands — leads to the 
conclusion, that, during the day-time, they were 
w^orking at their usual employments. This is con- 
firmed by Justin Martyr, when he reproaches the 
Jew for spending the Sabbath in idleness, and by 
the Jew who says, that the Christians keep no Sab- 
bath, to which also I shall refer hereafter. 

There is no doubt that the early Christians held 
religious meetings. The letter from Ptiny to Trajan, 
contained in Book X. Letter 97, which has often 
been quoted, says, that "the Christians whom he 
had examined, declared that they made it a prac- 
tice, on a stated day, to meet together before day- 
4 



42 INSTITUTION OF THE 

light to sing hymns with responses to Christ as a 
God, and to bind themselves by a solemn institu- 
tion not to do any wrong act.'' This letter, which 
certainly bears the marks of authenticity, has been 
pronounced a forgery by Dr. Semler, of Leipsig, 
and other learned German critics. Admitting it to 
be true, it proves nothing; it does not speak of the 
first day of the week, and alludes only to the Chris- 
tians in Bythinia. 

The works of Justin Martyr are still more ex- 
plicit, though written at a later period. He says, 
that "they met together on Sunday; that the me- 
moirs of the apostles, and the writings of the pro- 
phets, are read as long as circumstances will admit;" 
and it is otherwise mentioned that the poor were 
provided for, and that there were regular feasts of 
charity — "sober repasts." There is incontestable 
evidence, that worship was celebrated in a different 
manner in different countries, that the early Chris- 
tians not only assembled on the first day of the 
week, but also on the fourth, sixth and seventh 
days.^ 

In some parts, especially in the eastern countries, 
Saturday was appointed for religious meetings, not, 
as it is stated, because they were infected with Ju- 
daism, but to worship the Lord Jesus Christ, as is 
expressly affirmed by Athanasius and others.t 

* Mosheim, 1st vol. t See Cave's Primitive Christianity. 



SABBATH DAY. 43 

The proof that any particular sacredness was 
attached to any peculiar day, is altogether wanting. 
On the contrary, it will be shewn hereafter, that no 
distinction between days was made by the early 
Christians, until the church became corrupt. 

Many of the ceremonies of the church, a consi- 
derable proportion of which have come down to 
us, had their origin in the superstitions of the Pa- 
gans and the Jews. Mosheim, speaking of the first 
century, says, that the Christian religion was pecu- 
liarly commendable on account of its beautiful and 
divine simplicity; and that many of the external 
rites were adopted, that they might captivate the 
senses of the vulgar, and refute the reproaches which 
had been cast upon the Christians, by the Pagan 
priests, on account of the simplicity of the worship; 
and because they had no temples, altars, victims, 
priests, "nor any thing of that external pomp, in 
which the vulgar are so prone to place the essence 
of religion. ^^ 

The works of Justin Martyr are the first of an 
ecclesiastical character, on which implicit reliance 
is placed by all. Accomplished in the learning of 
his age, his life and his death were marked by sin- 
cerity in the cause of truth. 

There is preserved in his works a dialogue be- 
tween himself and Trypho, a learned Jew, in which 
the Jew objects to the Christians, that they did not 



44 INSTITUTION OF THE 

observe the Sabbath day. The Jew says to Justin, 
"The Christians, though they boasted of the truth 
of their religion, and wished to excel all other 
people, differed in nothing from the heathen in 
their manner of living, because they neither ob- 
served the festivals, nor the Sabbath, nor circum- 
cision.'^ To which Justin replies, "There is another 
kind of circumcision, and you think highly of that 
of the flesh. The law will have you keep a per- 
petual Sabbath, and you, when you have spent one 
day in idleness, think you are religious, not know- 
ing why it was commanded. 

"As, therefore, circumcision began from Abra- 
ham, and Sabbath, and sacrifice, and oblation from 
Moses, which it has been shewn were ordained on 
account of your nation's hardness of heart, so, ac- 
cording to the counsel of the fathers, they were to 
end in Jesus Christ the Son of God.'' 

" Do you not see," he says to Trypho, "that the 
elements are never idle, nor keep a Sabbath ? Con- 
tinue as you were created, for if there was no need 
of circumcision before Abraham, nor of the observ- 
ance of the Sabbath, and festivals, and oblations 
before Moses, neither now is there likewise after 
Christ."* 

Again: "If any among you is guilty of perjury, 

* I have copied the above from a work called "Sunday Po- 
lice." The translation has been compared, and found correct. 



SABBATH DAY. 45 

or fraud, let him cease from these crimes; if he is 
an adulterer, let him repent, and he will have kept 
the kind of Sabbath pleasing to God/^ 

In his dialogue, page 241, Paris edition, Justin 
says, "A greater mystery was annexed by God to 
the eighth than the seventh day. This mystery he 
afterwards states to be the command to circumcise 
on the eighth day, which was a type of the true 
circumcision from error and wickedness;'^* and for 
several other reasons which may therein be referred 
to. Justin Martyr was supposed to have written 
within fifty years of the death of some of the writers 
of the New Testament, and his evidence may be 
considered to be conclusive, that no one day was 
considered more holy than another by the early 
Christians. 

I make the following extract from the Institutes 
of John Calvin, the indefatigable reformer, the 
great promulgator of the doctrine concerning pre- 
destination, and considered to be the founder of the 
Presbyterian church. To avoid cavil, I give the 
original Latin text, with a translation made for this 
work. 

"Ceterum non dubium quin Domini Christi 
aduetu, quod ceremoniale hie erat, abolitum fuerit. 
Ipse enim Veritas est, cuius presentia figurse omnes 

* See Bishop Lincoln's account of Justin's writings, page 96. 
4* 



46 INSTITUTION OF THE 

evanescunt : corpus cuius aspectu, umbrae relin- 
quuntur. Ipse, inquam, verum Sabbathi comple- 
mentum. Per baptismum illi consepulti, in con- 
sortium mortis ejus insisti sumus, ut resurrectionis 
participesj in novitate vitse ambulemus. Ideo Sab- 
bathum umbram fuisse rei future alibi scribit Apos- 
tolus: corpus extare in Christo, hoc est, solidam 
veritatis substantiam, quam illo loco bene explicavit. 
Ea non uno die cotenta est, sed toto vitse nostrse 
cursu, donee penitus nobismetipsis mortui, Dei vita 
impleamur. A Christianis ergo abesse debet super- 
stitiosa dierum observatio."* 

"But it cannot be doubted, that every thing cere- 
monial was abolished at the coming of Christ our 
Lord. For he is the reality, at whose presence all 
types vanish — the substance, at whose sight shadows 
are forsaken: he, I say, is the true fulfilment of the 
Sabbath. Being by baptism buried with him, we 
have been grafted into a share of his death, that, 
being partakers of the resurrection, we should walk 
in newness of life. Therefore, the apostle in an- 
other place says, that the Sabbath was the shadow 
of something future — that in Christ is the body; 
that is, the solid, real substance, which in that place 
he has well explained. This is content, not with 
one day, but with the whole course of our life, until, 

* Calvin's Institutes, book II. chapter 8, section 31. 



SABBATH DAY. 47 

being wholly dead to ourselves, we are filled with 
the life of God. Far, therefore, from Christians 
ought to be the superstitious observance of days.'^ 

Words could hardly be more explicit than those 
Calvin has made use of, he adverts to the propriety 
of holding public meetings on the first day of the 
week, and adds, "Oh! that it were granted to us 
that we might assemble every day, that so the dis- 
tinction of days might be removed.'^ 

William Penn, on the same subject, speaks as 
follows: '^As to consecrated days and times, and 
the superstitious observation of them, this we are 
displeased with, as beggarly and Jewish. * * He, 
certainly, little deserves to be styled an evangelical 
minister, who, instead of preaching the end of all 
holy days, feasts, new moons, solemn assemblies 
and Sabbath days, is asserting and maintaining the 
absolute necessity and service of them under the 
gospel. *Let no man judge you in meat or drink, 
or in respect of an holy day, or new moon, or of 
the Sabbath, which are shadows of things to come, 
but the body is of Christ.' This doctrine Paul 
preached and writ; how then should it be evan- 
gelical to institute a second, visible Sabbath, in the 
room or place of the first, when the first was ab- 
rogated as shadowy, is absurd and incongruous; for 
the reason of the visible and external rest, was the 
visible and external creation; but because the second 



48 INSTITUTION OF THE 

creation is invisible, and spiritual by the invisible 
word of his power, viz: the regeneration and re- 
demption of the soul of man, (begetting him anew 
to God,) therefore should the gospel Sabbath be also 
spiritual and invisible, t9 which these words refer, 
'Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy 
laden, and I will give you rest/ — 'We which have 
believed, do enter with rest/ — 'There remaineth a 
rest for the people of God/'^* 

It is not too much to say, that William Penn was 
one of the most enlightened men that the world has 
yet seen. His admirable principles of civil and 
religious liberty, promulgated at a time when the 
moral atmosphere was darkened with bigotry and 
superstition, have been the admiration of the world. 
His views of morality and religion were of the 
highest order; yet he hesitates not to say, that 
neither the Jewish Sabbath, nor any other holy 
day in its place, is binding upon Christians. 

Many of the older bishops of the Episcopal 
church fully sustain the same sentiments. Among 
them, Aylmer, bishop of London, who also speaks 
of the propriety of innocent recreations on the first 
day of the week; repeating the text, to sustain his 
views, which sectarians now use for directly the 
opposite purpose, that " the Sabbath was made for 
man.^^f 

* Penn's Works, folio, 2nd vol. 

t See his Biography, in Bayle's Dictionary, note HH. 



SABBATH DAY. 49 

Warburton, bishop of Gloucester, in his "Divine 
Legation of Moses/^ says, there is the same au- 
thority for circumcision derived from the Mosaic 
law, as there is for the continuance for the Sab- 
bath.* 

I also refer to Doctor Peter Heylyn, chaplain to 
the kings of England,! and to Bishop Ironsides.J 

For the modern views of Episcopalians, I may 
cite the folowing: 

Wm. Paley§ says, "A cessation upon the first 
day of the week from labour, beyond the time of 
attendance upon public worship, is not intimated in 
any passage of the New Testament, nor did Christ 
nor his apostles deliver, that we know of, any com- 
mand to their disciples, for a discontinuance upon 
that day of the common offices of their profession.^' 

R. Wheatly, D.D.,|| principal of St. Alban's Hall, 
and fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, says, "That 
the Lord's day is to be held purely as a religious 
festival, Judaism being abolished, all its positive 
and ritual observances, must, of course, be wholly 
at an end. So that we are now no more compelled 
to keep the fourth commandment, than we are to 

* Divine Legation, vol. IV. p. 31, note, 
t Heyl3^n's History of the Presbyterians. 
t Penn's Works, 480. 
§ Chap. VII. Sabbatical Institutions. 

II Essays on Writings of St. Paul. 



50 INSTITUTION OF THE 

continue the worship of the temple or the daily 
sacrifice/^ 

Bishop White, in his Lectures on the Catechism, 
says, that it appears evident, so far as regarded the 
authority of the injunction to the Israelites, and 
unless some new obligation can be shown, the in- 
stitution ceased, even in relation to Jewish converts 
to Christianity at the destruction of their religious 
polity, and that it was never extended to the Gen- 
tile Christians; of this there shall be given but one 
proof, it being decisive to the point. It is in the 
2nd chapter of the Collossians, "Let no man, there- 
fore, judge you in meat or in drink, or in respect of 
an holy day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath 
days.'^ And he adds, that any employment condu- 
cive to the civic weal, which cannot be suspended 
without defeating the object, such as gathering in 
the harvest, and the like, may be allowed on the 
first day of the week. 

Paley, in particular, and no doubt all the rest of 
these authors, speaks highly of the benefit of reli- 
gious services on the first day of the week, ground- 
ing his opinions on the practices of the early Chris- 
tians. This may all be well, but their practice, how 
estimable soever it may have been, is no obligation 
to us, and is not binding upon us. 

I make the following extract from a sermon of 



SABBATH DAY. 51 

William H. Furness, delivered at the Unitarian 
church, in Philadelphia, on Sunday, March 17, 1844. 
"There is no religious form of so general accepta- 
tion among Christians, as this which we are now 
observing, the use of this, the first day of the w^eek, 
as an occasion of social worship. But Jesus Christ 
uttered not a word enjoining this observance. He 
nowhere teaches that a day is to be set apart for 
religious services. His countrymen were accus- 
tomed to regard the seventh day as a holy day. 
But he never insisted upon its being kept; on the 
contrary, whenever he referred to the Jewish Sab- 
bath, it was to condemn the superstitious reverence 
with which that day was regarded. He was wont 
to do things on that day, which were considered as 
violations of its sacredness by the strict observers 
of the Sabbath, and which I imagine would be so 
considered by many now-a-days, if they were done 
upon the Christian day of rest. Once in the open 
air, in a public place, on the Sabbath, he cured a 
woman who had been suffering for years, (and 
whose case, of course, did not demand immediate 
attention,) and a great crowd was collected, and a 
great sensation produced. The usual order and 
quietness of the day must undoubtedly have been 
disturbed; for one of the strictly religious expressed 
his disapprobation of the conduct of Jesus, saying, 
that there were six days in the week, when the people 



52 INSTITUTION OP THE 

might come and be cured, and not on the Sabbath. 
With what indignation did Jesus treat this sugges- 
tion, pronouncing it gross hypocrisy to regard the 
day as too sacred for an act of simple humanity, for 
the exercise of that love which is the fulfilling of 
the law. There really does not appear to have been 
any one particular thing which stirred the spirit of 
Jesus more deeply, than the false and superstitious 
idea which his countrymen entertained of the Sab- 
bath. He instituted no form of worship. He ap- 
pointed no particular days or seasons.'^ 

The following extract is from a small work, en- 
titled "The Sabbath,'^ by Henry Grew, a clergy- 
man of Philadelphia. *'The duty of assembling on 
this day for social and public w^orship, necessarily 
involves the duty of separating ourselves from our 
secular concerns, so far as such worship requires. 
The common opinion that il is sinful to attend to 
such concerns on a?i7/ part of the first day of the 
week, is sustained by no precept or example in the 
New Testament. I write now of positive law. 
What spiritual worshippers consider to be their 
privilege, is another question. The common opi- 
nion rests on the false principle of the holiness of 
particular days or times. There is yet a veil on the 
minds of some Christians in reading both the Old 
and New Testament, so that they cannot ^look to 
the end of that which is abolished,^ ^^ 2 Cor. iii. 13. 



J 



SABBATH DAY. 53 

I have thus given the sentiments of men of dif- 
ferent countries, of different ages, and of doctrines, 
in many respects, diametrically opposed to each 
other, whose opinions on the Sabbath are all coin- 
cident with the doctrines of the New Testament, 
and utterly at variance with that small portion of 
the Christian world, who are now attempting to cast 
odium upon those who cannot so far violate their 
consciences, as to believe that one day is more holy 
than the others. The practices among Christians 
have corresponded thereto. 

The Palatine churches in Germany adhered 
tenaciously to the Calvinistic doctrine, and they 
may be considered to have formed the head and 
front of the Presbyterian church in the 16th cen- 
tury, yet it w^as only on the morning of the first 
day of the week that public meetings were held. 
In the afternoon, the gentlemen took to hawking 
and hunting, if the day was fit for either; visiting 
their friends, or whatever else was pleasing to them. 
The husbandman spent the greater part of the after- 
noon in looking over his grounds, ordering his 
cattle, and following such recreations as were most 
agreeable to his nature and education;^ and it re- 
mains so, to a great extent, in the Protestant 
churches in Germany to the present day. At Ge- 

* Heylyn's History of the Presbyterians. 
5 



54 INSTITUTION OF THE 

neva, on Sunday morning, the gates are closed, the 
meeting-houses are opened, and people are expected 
to attend them. The after part of the day is a pe- 
riod of rest, and of innocent amusement. Such is, 
and has been, the general practice throughout the 
Christian world; we shall see in the sequel, by 
what means Christianity, upon this subject, has 
been partially lost sight of, and the Presbyterians, 
disregarding the sentiments of their great founder, 
have become more rigid than any other society. 

The first decree for the observance of the first 
day of the week, called Sunday, was the result of 
that corrupt union between church and state, which 
has so often been productive of the most injurious 
effects to the cause of vital religion. 

It was promulgated by Constantino the Great. I 
extract it entire, as it is extant in the Corpus Juris 
Civilis, under the head of De Feriis. Lib. III. 
Tit. 12. 

In the Life of Constantino, by Eusebius, it is 
called "The Salutary Day;'^ and, as a matter of 
course, Eusebius, who was bishop of Caesarea in 
Palestine, gives the emperor great praise for the 
enactment of the law. It is as follows: 
3. Imp. Constant. 

Omnes judices, urbanaeque plebes, et cunctarum 
artium ofScia venerabili die solis quiescant. Ruri 
tamen positi agrorum culturae libere licenterque 



SABBATH DAY. 55 

inserviant: quoniam frequenter evenit, ut non aptius 
alio dio frumenta sulcis, aut vineae scrobibus man- 
dentur, ne occasione momenti pereat commoditas 
coelesti provisione concessa. Dat. Nonis Mart. Crispo 
2, & Constantino 2. Coss. 321. 

It will be observed, that this law only speaks of 
Sunday as a day of rest, and that it applies only to 
judges, town-people, and tradesmen. I subjoin the 
following literal translation. 

*^Let all the judges and town-people, and the oc- 
cupations of all trades, rest on the venerable day of 
the sun; but let those who are situated in the coun- 
try, freely and at full liberty, attend to the business 
of agriculture; because it often happens that no 
other day is so fit for sowing corn and planting 
vines, lest the critical moment being let slip, men 
should lose the commodities granted by the provi- 
dence of Heaven.'^ 

The character of Constantine is well known. He 
was the second Roman emperor* that embraced the 
Christian faith; he presided at the council of Nice, 
that council of bishops which undertook to decide 
which part of the New Testament should be con- 
sidered canonical, and which rejected. He was, in 

* Constantine is frequently spoken of as being the first Chris- 
tian Emperor. Philip, who was crowned in the year 246, was 
the first. (Eusebius, edition 1607, page 3; also, Chronology in 
the same work.) 



56 INSTITUTION OF THE 

some respects, a great man; but his domestic life is 
marked by such atrocities, as would seem to render 
him unfit to be a judge in any matter pertaining to 
religion. <^The voices of sycophants have sung his 
praises, because he embraced the Christian religion. 
Yet this man, in the very year that he presided at 
the council of Nice, murdered the husbands of his 
sisters Constantia and Anastasia. He murdered his 
sister's son, a boy only twelve years of age, under 
the most frivolous pretext. In the year that he 
issued his decree for the observance of the Sunday, 
he murdered his familiar friend, Sopater; and the 
year before, destroyed his wife, Fausta, by putting 
her in a bath of boiling water. These, though not 
all the atrocities he perpetrated in his own imme- 
diate family, are sufficient to show the character of 
the man; and sectarians may have all the benefit 
they can derive from the knowledge that it was 
this man, stained with the blood of his own domes- 
tic circle, that issued the first decree in a Christian 
country, for making any distinction between Sun- 
day and any other day in the week. 

The usage relative to the first day of the week, 
may be divided into three periods, which were 
marked by three classes of men, who have been 
more or less intermixed from the earliest period of 
the Christian church, down to the present day. 
First: That of the early Christians, by whom the 



SABBATH DAY. 57 

day was called Sunday. All who embrace the 
letter and spirit of the New Testament, reject 
totally the idea of a distinction of days. They 
have the most indisputable evidence that the primi- 
tive Christians attended to their usual occupations 
every day in the week. 

The second, may be considered the symbolical 
period. 

The third, to which I shall hereafter advert, the 
puritanical period. 

The second, which I am now to consider, was 
distinctly shewn by the edict of Constantino. As 
the church became ceremonial, symbols of religion 
and festivals were appointed. They commenced 
at an earlier era than the reign of Constantino; but 
it was then for the first time that the State became 
a party in them, and lent its power to make the 
Christian religion one of splendour and consequence 
in the world, so as to captivate the Pagans who had 
been used to the imposing forms of heathen wor- 
ship. 

Christmas had been appointed a festival to com- 
memorate the nativity of Christ; Easter,* as an 
annual mark of his resurrection; Whitsunday, and 
others, of like character, for particular periods. 

* I am aware that the term Easter occurs in the New Testa- 
ment. It is considered an interpolation, and that it derives its 
name from the goddess Eostre, worshipped by the Saxons. 
5* 



5S INSTITUTION OF THE 

Among these, was the first day of the week; it was 
not a day of austerities. Fasting had been intro- 
duced as a penance; but this was so directly in op- 
position to a day of rejoicing, that a variety of 
church edicts were passed, prohibiting fasting on 
the first day of the week. But even in this thing, 
there appears to have been no particular sanctity 
attached to the day. I have said before, that meet- 
ings for worship were held on different days in dif- 
ferent countries, and the same practice prevailed 
when a weekly festival was more distinctly esta- 
blished. 

Ambrose, bishop of Milan, who lived but a few 
years after the edict of Constantine was issued, 
when he was consulted upon the subject of there 
being no uniformity of days, advised that people 
should be governed by the usages of countries where 
they were.* But whether the festival was held on 
Saturday or Sunday, fasting was positively pro- 
hibited. The Motanists, a sect who arose in the 
second century, were remarkable for the greatest 
severity in their lives and doctrines. They had 
many absurd tenets, among which were laws of 
great strictness for fasting, but they excepted the 
first day of the week out of their austerities.f 

The first man that was executed in the Christian 

* Cave's '^Primitive Christianity," chap. vii. page 114. 

t Eusebius, Mosheim and Howell's Ecclesiastical Histories. 



SABBATH DAY. 59 

era, by the secular power, for heresy, was Priscil- 
lianus. It was done at the instance of some of the 
bishops. One of the charges against him was, that 
he kept the Lord's day by fasting. A council of 
the church was assembled on the fourth of October, 
381, in reference thereto, w^hich expressly anathe- 
matized all such as fasted on that day, whether by 
mispersuasion or superstition. 

In the epistle of Ignatius to the Phillippians, it 
is stated, that "he is a killer of Christ who fasts on 
the Lord's day, or on Saturday;"* and there is a 
variety of evidence to show that the Sunday was 
considered to be a day of relaxation, of joy, and re- 
joicing, rather than of gloom. The Pharasaical 
doctrine, which is now so prevalent, of keeping 
that day with strictness, was, among the Christians 
of this early period, counted to be a great wicked- 
ness. Eustathius renewed the practice of keeping 
it as a fast day, and it was again condemned by a 
provincial synod, held at Gangra, in Paphlagonia, 
which decreed, that "if any, upon pretence of ab- 
stinence, fasted on the Lord's day, he should be 
anathema." 

One of the canons of the council of Nice decreed, 
that praying by kneeling should be especially inter- 
dicted on the day of the resurrection of our Lord 

* Howell's Ecclesiastical History, folio, vol. IV. 



60 INSTITUTION OF THE 

Jesus Christ, because it indicated fear and sorrow, 
on a day in which the whole church exults and re- 
joices.* 

In the fifth century, Mosheim says, *^to enumerate 
the rites and institutions which were added in this 
century to the Christian worship, would require a 
volume of considerable size;'^ and again, in the 
next century, "the cause of true religion sunk 
apace, and the gloomy reign of superstition ex- 
tended itself in proportion to the decay of genuine 
piety. This lamentable decay was supplied by a 
multitude of rites and ceremonies.^^f Among these, 
the canon of the mass was for the first time esta- 
blished. Almost as a necessary consequence of this 
departure from the truth, an edict was passed by the 
council of Orleans, in the year 538, to enforce more 
strictly the observance of the first day of the week.J 
Country labour, which had been left open by the 
edict of Constantine, was interdicted. Still it was 
declared, that to hold it unlawful to travel with 
horses, cattle and carriages, to prepare food, or to 
do anything necessary to the cleanliness or decency 
of persons or houses, savoured more of Judaism 
than of Christianity; and the council of Laodocia 

* 16th Canon of the Council of Nice. 

t Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History, vol. II. 6th and 7th ceh- 
turies. 
t Encyclopedia, article Sunday. 



SABBATH DAY. 61 

enjoined that men should abstain from work, if pos- 
sible; but if any were found to Judaize, that is to 
say, to keep the day with great strictness, "they 
were to be censured as great transgressors/'* 

Whilst, in the corruptions of the church, they 
thus increased their laws relative to labour on that 
day, it is everywhere apparent that they rejected 
the idea of the Jewish strictness; and it is equally 
apparent, that the church had become extremely 
ceremonial. Thus, at the council of Gangra, before 
referred to, an edict was passed, that "if any should 
take upon him, out of the church, privately to 
preach at home, and making light of the church, 
shall do those things that belong only to the church, 
without the presence of the priests, and the leave 
and allowance of the bishop, let him be accursed. '^t 
These things are connected together, and they are 
equally the effect of a ceremonial religion. It would 
take volumes to recount them, and they are all alike 
separated from that beautiful simplicity inculcated 
by Jesus Christ, which was the daily and hourly 
practice of virtue. 

There were other attempts to solemnize the day, 
which are not mentioned in ecclesiastical history; 
and, so far as they can be traced, they appear to 
have been most apparent, wherever people most de- 

* Encyclopedia, article Sabbath. 

+ Cave's Primitive Christianity, chap. vii. page 110. 



62 INSTITUTION OF THE 

parted from the simplicity of the gospel. Thus it 
is mentioned of the Saxons, by Bacon in his Notes 
on Selden, that when they first settled in England, 
they began their Sunday on Saturday at 3 o'clock 
in the afternoon, and held it until Monday morning; 
during which time they refrained from their usual 
occupations of hunting, &c. Many of their laws 
are still preserved, shewing them to have been an 
extremely superstitious people, and Hume says they 
were worse than the ancient Britons. 

I may remark that the Roman laws upon the sub- 
ject of Sunday, are extant in the " Corpus Juris 
Civilis/' collected by Dyonisius Gothofredus. There 
is at least one distinct notice that the enactments 
w^ere made at the instance of the clergy; and War- 
burton, himself a bishop, in his work upon Julian, 
referring to the severities that were exercised to- 
wards the popular clergy, at the period succeeding 
Constantino, says, "It cannot be denied, that their 
turbulent and insolent manners deserved all the 
severities that were put upon them.'' Sabbatarians 
may object to these laws, as having resulted from a 
church more or less corrupted; but they are left in 
this dilemma, to accept them or none. They have 
been the foundation of all our laws relative to the 
observance of Sunday — they have been revised and 
modified, and changed, according to the caprices of 
particular periods of time, but they rest upon no 



SABBATH DAY. 63 

other foundation than a ceremonial union between 
church and state. 

The outline began by Constantine, and enforced 
by others more corrupt, if possible, than he, was 
left to be completed by the Puritans, a people who 
had their origin in the sixteenth century, and this 
marks the third period. 

As a sect they are now extinct; but their name 
remains as a beacon-light against encouraging in- 
tolerance, bigotry and superstition, under the garb 
of religion. As the Puritans gained power in Eng- 
land, the whole nation became convulsed with the 
most frivolous disputes. It was not only the great 
leading doctrine, "That saving grace is not given, 
or communicated, to all men, and that those who 
are not predestinated to salvation, shall necessarily 
be damned,^^* that distracted the country, but the 
government itself was thrown into violent convul- 
sions respecting the use of the surplice, the rails 
placed about the altar, the ring in marriage, the 
cross in baptism, and other rites which Hume calls 
mean and contemptible. But they were not con- 
temptible, if they involved principle. 

By the Puritan book of discipline, the minister 
was not allowed to baptize children by the names of 
Richard, Robert, &c.,w^hich savoured of paganism; 

* Nine articles of Lambeth in Hist. Presbyterians, p. 342. 



64 INSTITUTION OF THE 

they were to use Scripture names, such as Obadiah, 
Zephaniah, Hezekial, &c., which are so common 
among the descendants of the Puritans at the pre- 
sent day : and to the same source are we indebted 
for such names as Deliverance, Virtue, Fear, Hope, 
Charity, Thankful, Consolation, Praise God, The 
Lord is Near, and a variety of others of the same 
character.* The three first children that were bap- 
tized in Boston church, were named Joy, Recom- 
pense and Pity.t 

It was Doctor Bound, one of the rigid Puritans, 
who applied the name Sabbath to the first day 
of the week, about the year 1595. He published 
a book upon the occasion, particularly decrying the 
Romish festivals, in which he stated that the church 
of Rome had joined many other days to the seventh 
day, making them equal, if not superior, as well in 
the solemnity of divine offices, as in restraint from 
labour; that the commandment for sanctifying every 
seventh day in the Mosaic Decalogue, is natural, 
moral and perpetual, and that the church had no 
authority to sanctify any other day. 

This new Sabbath doctrine, as it was called, of 
Bound's, met with violent opposition from the 
Episcopal and other churches. Archbishop Whit- 
gift condemned the book, and Rogers, another cler- 

* Heylyn's History, pp. 254 & 339. 
t Hutchinson's History. 



SABBATH DAY. 65 

gymatij said, "that it was the comfort of his soul, 
and would be to his dying day, that he had been 
the man and the means that the Sabbatarian errors 
were brought to the light and knowledge of the 
state.^^* To counteract this doctrine, the book 
'' concerning lawful sports, to be used on Sundays 
after divine service,"* which had been heretofore 
issued, was republished by king Charles I., with 
an order that it should be circulated through all the 
parish churches. This allowed of all kinds of di- 
versions on Sunday; and the king declared, that it 
was done "out of pious care for the service of God, 
and for suppressing of those humours that oppose 
truth, and for the ease, comfort, and recreation of 
his majesty's well deserving people.'^* The bishops 
recommended these recreations, "as bringing the 
people more willingly to church, as tending to 
civilize them, and to compose diflferences among 
them, and as serving to increase love and unity."* 
The Puritans were of a different mind, and vio- 
lently opposed them; many of the clergy refused 
to read the king's orders in their churches. The 
animosity was very severe, and was carried on for 
many years. The whole argument of the Sabba- 
tarians, seemed to rest upon the Mosaic code. It 
serves to shew the error of trying to make the 

* Neal's Hist. Paritans, London edition, 1768, vol. I. p. 495; 
and vol. II. pp. 238-39. 
6 



66 INSTITUTION OF THE 

consciences of men depend upon state laws. What 
is sanctioned in one age is condemned in another, 
from the particular caprices of those who may 
happen to be in power. 

It is stated that every passage in the Bible, 
whether relating to the legal Sabbath, or to the 
spiritual Sabbath of the soul, was tortured to prove 
their position; and it was carried to such a length, 
that chief justice Popham commanded these books 
to be called in, and neither be printed nor made 
public for time to come. 

This is believed to be the origin of the term 
Christian Sabbath, a name which has not generally 
been adopted among Christians, and it ought never 
to be adopted, because, applied to a day, it is a 
falsehood. 

The Puritanical zeal upon the subject, appears to 
have had no other foundation than the attempt to 
gain power by destroying festivals, which were 
sustained by the Romish and Episcopal churches. 
Pretending to consider themselves peculiarly the 
church of Christ, their fanaticism was directed 
against every thing which they had not themselves 
created. 

They carried their enmity against Christians and 
the churchmen so far, as to regard it profane and 
superstitious to eat mince-pies at the period of 
Christmas. They objected to the day as a festival, 



SABBATH DAY. 67 

to establish other festival days of their own; they 
declaimed against human learning, challenging 
the professors from Oxford to prove that their 
calling was from Christ, and set up theological 
schools to disseminate their own doctrines. They 
denounced, as we have seen, innocent diversions on 
Sunday, to appoint by act of parliament, when 
they had the power, another day in its place; and 
their whole history seems to lead to but one con- 
clusion, that if they could best have gained their 
point by abolishing the Sabbath, instead of enforc- 
ing it, they would have done so. They rejected 
the doctrines of the early Christians, and the opi- 
nions of Calvin, without considering that a day 
made holy by them, had no more authority than a 
holy day created by the church of Rome. 

Their doctrine gave great offence to the younger 
part of the community, who had been used to con- 
sider Sunday as a day of rest and of innocent 
amusements; and to satisfy them, the second Tues- 
day in every month was appointed in its place by 
act of parliament.* 

In the excited state of the public mind, and in 
the bigotry that existed towards the Catholic church, 
this scheme had a wonderful influence with the 
people. Many ways had been tried for several 

* Hume's History of England, vol. VII. page 33. 



68 INSTITUTION OF THE 

years to suppress these festivals, but they were all in 
vain, till this new Sabbath doctrine was brought up. 

The contagion spread, to a certain extent, in all 
those countries where there was an opposition to 
the Romish see. Frederic the 5th, Prince Elector 
of Palatine, in an early period of the 17th century, 
under the influence of the English clergy, for the 
first time, ordered what was termed religious ser- 
vice, to be held in the afternoon of the first day of 
the week, in the Calvinistic churches of Germany. 
The same influence prevailed in the low countries, 
where, by the constitution, divine offices had been 
absolutely prohibited on the afternoon of that day.* 

All the amusements and labour, common in other 
parts of Europe, had been allowed in England. By 
act of parliament, festival days included Sundays; 
and a law was passed, during the reign of Queen 
Elizabeth, in these words: "All pastors, vicars and 
curates shall teach and declare unto the people, that 
they may, with a safe and quiet conscience, after 
their common prayer, in time of harvest, labour 
upon the holy and festival days, and save that thing 
which God hath sent; and if, for any scrupulosity 
or grudge of conscience, they abstain from working 
on that day, that then they shall grievously offend 
and displease God.^^t 

* Heylyn's History of the Presbyterians, 
t Horae Sabbaticae. 



SABBATH DAY. 69 

Books were issued by the royal authority at a 
later period, licensing particular sports and annuse- 
ments on the Sunday. As the Puritans gained 
power, without any consultation with the king, the 
house of commons directed that these books should 
be burnt by the hangman, which was done. ^ 

The Puritans ordained, that not only labour and 
amusements should be interdicted, but that all tra- 
velling should be stopped; may-poles, which ap- 
peared like heathenish vanities, should be removed; 
no barber should be allowed to shave a man on Sun- 
day; no tailor to carry home a suit of clothes; no 
one was allowed to sit at his own door, to walk the 
streets, or to enjoy the fresh air in the open fields. 
It was said to be preached from the pulpits, that to 
do any servile work or business on the Lord's day, 
was as great a sin as to kill a man; that to make a 
feast, or to dress a wedding-dinner, was as unlawful 
as for a father to take a knife and cut his child^s 
throat.-f 

Laws of this nature, more or less severe, are 
everywhere intermixed with the Puritanic dis- 
cipline; they were, in the true sense of the word, 
a Sabbath-keeping people; it formed one of the 
most prominent traits of their character; and if 
there is a page of history that can exemplify the 

* Hume's History of England. 
t History of the Presbyterians. 
6* 



70 INSTITUTION OF THE 

peculiar effect of a Sabbath-day religion, it is to be 
found in the recorded account of the Puritan sect. 

It is to the accidental circumstance of the violent 
opposition of this people to the festivals and rites 
of the Romish and Episcopal churches, and not to 
any sound religious principles, that we are at this 
time indebted for Sabbath conventions, and all the 
extraordinary zeal that is exhibited in Judaizing the 
first day of the week; and it appears to have been 
fostered and encouraged from the most mercenary 
motives. What was innovation in one age, and 
well understood in England at the time, has become 
authority in the next; and the ^^ Christian Sabbath'^ 
is now spoken of both by presumptuous men, who 
ought to know better, and by ignorant men, as 
having an authority which it never has had, and 
never can rightly obtain. 

The Puritans, losing their influence in England, 
fled to this country, bringing with them their pre- 
judices, which have descended from generation to 
generation to the present day. It may be asked, 
whence they derived their authority? The answer 
is, from Moses. The New Testament did not suit 
their purposes — making it a day simply of rest and 
rejoicing, savoured of the superstition of the Romish 
church. Mixing up fasting with Judaism, it be- 
came to them a day of austerities, one in which no 
labour was to be performed: and we shall see in the 



SABBATH DAY. 71 

sequel the deplorable effects that resulted therefrom. 
In the Boston Sabbath work referred to, speaking 
in the highest terms of the great advantages of keep- 
ing holy the Sabbath day, it says, "the manner in 
which people keep the Sabbath, will be a test of 
their character, an index of their morality and reli- 
gion. ^^^ Here, then, we have in the Puritans, one 
of the fairest tests that the w^orld can afford; and, in 
so interesting an inquiry, it is due to the cause of 
truth and justice, that I should bring their charac- 
ters into view, as an index, according to the Boston 
writer, of what may be expected from a Sabbath- 
keeping people. 

The observations of no one man, how extensive 
soever they may be, are sufficient to test the mo- 
rality of different individuals, acting under different 
circumstances, through wide extended countries, but 
it may be received as an axiom, that in proportion 
as one day is made more holy than the rest, every 
other day is profaned. 

It is an obvious truth, that so far as men confine 
their religion to one day, they become less religious 
on other days; and the inference is equally obvious, 
that, all other things being equal, a people who are 
peculiarly zealous in a religious observation of the 
first day of the week, will have a lower standard of 

* Permanent Sabbath Documents, No. 1. 



72 INSTITUTION OF THE 

morals and religion, than other similar classes of 
society. 

There may be supposed to be many instances to 
the contrary, but they will be found to be too partial 
in their character to sustain any general reasoning. 
Individual exceptions do not falsify general rules — 
the principle remains unchanged. 

I use the term religion as conveying a general 
idea of my meaning; but the observance of days is 
in itself a proof of the want of pure and vital truth. 
Men may have excellent points in their character, 
but the whole basis of a distinction between days, 
is founded in irreligion; and this is fully exempli- 
fied in the Puritan character. As a class, they were 
not illiterate; there were among them, men of ca- 
pacity, of courage, and of extensive enterprise; but 
their characters were ruined by what they called 
their religion. 

Hume, in his History of England,* says^ "Their 
whole discourse and language were polluted with 
mysterious jargon, and full of the lowest and most 
vulgar hypocrisy.'^ 

Whether allowance is to be made or not for the 
opinion of a royalist author, it is certain, that their 
conduct seemed to threaten the destruction of the 
social fabric. They were called democratic in their 

* Vol. VI. page 390. 



SABBATH DAY. 73 

jDrinciples, and they certainly resisted arbitrary 
power. They resisted it in order to gain it for 
themselves, and they gained it but to abuse it. 
They obtained an ascendancy in religion to open 
rivers of blood, and to establish ridiculous innova- 
tions. 

If there ever was a dark benighted set of people, 
it was the Puritans. There have been many bigots, 
men of blood — superstitious people have existed in 
every age, zealots, men of intolerance, of mean and 
degraded sycophancy, of cant and hypocrisy; but 
it was reserved for the Puritans to combine in 
themselves, and that in an eminent degree, all the 
debasing qualities* of such men. These opinions 
are sustained by the most authentic history. 

Heylyn, in his History of the Presbyterians,f 
says of them, "More goodly houses were plundered 
and burnt down to the ground, more churches sacri- 
legiously profaned and spoiled, more blood poured 
out like water, within four years space, than had 
been done in the long%ourse of civil wars between 
York and Lancaster. With all which spoil and 
public ruin, they purchased nothing to themselves 
but shame and infamy, as may, be shown by taking 
a brief view of their true condition before and after 
they put the state into these confusions.'^J 

* Macauley, article Berthier. t Heylyn, 469. 

t It may be observed, that the different sects of the Presbyte- 



74 INSTITUTION OF THE 

Flying from persecution, they came to this coun- 
try with feelings which were not softened by their 
sufferings. Their characters were unchanged, they 
were still men of blood. The most barbarous laws 
were enacted and enforced. Men were fined for not 
attending their churches, and whipped if unwilling 
to pay the fines; some were put in irons, others had 
their ears cropped, or their tongues bored with a hot 
iron. Even women of the most estimable lives and 
conversation, were publicly whipped by the hang- 
man, and all for doing what the Puritans themselves 
had done in England, pleading for liberty of con- 
science, and objecting to the arbitrary powers of 
the established church. 

There was not the smallest allegation that they 
had violated any moral law, or done any harm to 
any person whatever. These cases extended over 
many years, and they were purely cases of the most 
bigoted intolerance. 

Their animosities were particularly directed 
against the Quakers. They-affected to believe, as 
the Sabbatarians of the present day do, that one of 

rians, Puritans, Independents, Covenanters, and those after- 
wards called Congregationalists, were, to a certain extent, inter- 
mixed together; but it was the Puritans who made the greatest 
pretension to holiness, and it was principally that class which 
emigrated to this country. They were divided among them- 
selves, but they appear to have been unanimous in their antipathy 
to the forms and doctrines of those who differed from themselv,es. 



SABBATH DAY. 75 

the first points in the life of a Christian, was a strict 
attention to what they termed the Christian Sab- 
bath. The Quakers rejected this idea, and the 
general law of the province says of them, that 
'Hhey frequented meetings of their own, in opposi- 
tion to our church order'^ — that "they held horrid 
opinions'^ — that ^'they denied the established forms 
•of worship^' — and were ^'in opposition to the or- 
thodox opinions of the godly. "^ This is the sum 
of all the charges which were made against the 
Quakers, and for which they were made to suffer 
so severely. 

As a matter of curiosity, I subjoin two warrants, 
which will speak for themselves. 

Boston, September 16, 166S. 

"To the Marshall-General, or to his Deputy: You 
are to take with you the Executioner, and to repair 
to the House of Correction, and there see him cut 
off the right ears of John Copeland, Christopher 
Holder and John Rouse, Quakers, in execution of 
the sentence of the Court of Assistants, for the 
breach of the law entitled Quakers. 

"Edward Rawson, Secretary, '^^ 

"To the Constables of Dover, Hampton, Salis- 
bury, Newbury, Rowley, Ipswich, Wenham, Lynn, 
Boston, Roxbury, Dedham; and until these vaga- 

* See *• An Act made at a General Court, held at Boston the 
20th of October, 1658. 



76 INSTITUTION OF THE 

bond Quakers are carried out of this jurisdiction, 
you and every of you are required, in the King's 
majesty's name, to take these vagabond Quakers, 
Anne Coleman, Mary Tomkins and Alice Am- 
brose, and make them fast to the cart tail, and, 
driving the cart through your several towns, to 
whip them upon their naked backs, not exceeding 
ten stripes apiece on each of them, in each town, 
and so to convey them, from constable to constable, 
till they are out of this jurisdiction, as you shall an- 
swer it at your peril, and this shall be your warrant. 

Per me, 

"Richard Walden. 

" Dover ^ Dec. 22nd^ 1662.'^ 

Thus through the fiery zeal of these Puritans, 
these tender women were to be w^hipped through 
eleven towns, a distance of SO miles. The account 
says, that on a very cold day they were stripped 
naked, from the middle upwards, and tied to a cart, 
and whipped, while the priest looked on and laughed. 
The sentence was executed through several towns, 
carrying them through dirt and snow half leg deep, 
till a clerk of one of the courts had the indepen- 
dence to say, "I am here to see your wickedness 
and cruelty, that, if you kill these women, I may 
be able to testify against you.'' The only opposi- 
tion to their release seems to have been from John 
Wheelright, the priest, who advised the constable to 



SABBATH DAY. 77 

drive on as his safest way. Soon after which, 
another priest said to them, "Ye have spoken well, 
and prayed well — pray what is your rule?'^ They 
replied, "The spirit of God is our rule, and it ought 
to be thine, and all men's to walk by;'' to which 
he replied, "it is not my rule, and I hope never will 
be."^ 

It would take many pages to recount all the 
dreadful atrocities that were perpetrated by the Pu- 
ritans against those who differed from themselves. 

The most severe laws were passed against all 
who were considered schismatics. Every free man 
was obliged to be a member of the church; and 
none but freemen were allowed to vote, or to hold 
public office. It was one of the most perfect unions 
of church and state that ever existed. 

Roger Williams, a man of estimable character, 
fled from their persecutions, and began the settle- 
ment of Rhode Island. ' A woman of the name of 
Hutchinson, in Boston, who seems to have been a 
person of superior understanding, in her anxiety to 
get out of the reach of persecutions, fled within 
reach of the exasperated Indians; where she was 
murdered, with nearly all her family.t A great 
number of others moved out of their jurisdiction ; 
toleration was preached against as a sin in rulers, 

* Sewel's History, pages 3-24-25. t Hutchinson's History. 
7 



78 INSTITUTION OF THE 

that would bring down the judgment of Heaven on 
the land. Mr. Dudley, one of their eminent men, 
died with a copy of verses in his pocket, written 
with his own hand; the two following lines, which 
made part of it, may be considered as the Puri- 
tan creed in New England: 

" Let men of God, in court and churches watch 
O'er such as do a toleration hatch."* 

Connected with these proceedings, were laws of 
even greater rigour than those in England, relative 
to the observance of the first day. Following the 
institutions of Moses, the first draught of the laws 
by Cotton, made profaning the Lord's day a capital 
ofience. The punishment of death was erased by 
Winthrop; but they totally refused to make any 
alteration in that part which forbid persons from 
walking in the streets or fields on that day.* 

As the command had been given to Joshua of 
old, to exterminate the heathen, so the Puritans, 
who conceived that they were now the true Israel 
of God, believed it their duty, not only to extermi- 
nate the Indians, who were heathen unto them, but 
to hang the Quakers. In England, calling religion to 
their aid, they held a prayer meeting of five hours 
continuance,! to ascertain, as they pretended, 

* Hutchinson's History, t Dg Israeli's History of Charles I. 



SABBATH DAY. 79 

whether they should cut off king Charles' head or 
not. The answer was according to their own preju- 
dices, and the king was beheaded. They then 
thought it honourable to resist the arbitrary power 
of the king; but it was quite another affair when 
the Quakers objected to their own arbitrary pro- 
ceedings, and asked for liberty of conscience for 
themselves. 

They hung the king for objecting to liberty of 
conscience, and they hung the Quakers for pleading 
for it. There was no charge of immoral conduct 
against them, they were persons estimable in every 
way, but they had this unpardonable sin to answer 
for, that their faith differed from that of the Puri- 
tans; and for this alone they w^ere hurried into the 
prisons, and several of them were publicly executed 
in Boston. 

They were originally banished on pain of death. 
I copy these words from the warrant: "Because it 
appears by their own confession, words, and actions, 
that they are Quakers, wherefore, a sentence was 
pronounced against them to depart this jurisdiction 
on pain of death.'' Some of them returned to Bos- 
ton ; they w^ere taken, brought into court, and, with- 
out ceremony, condemned to die.^ One of these 
was Mary Dyar, a pious and exemplary woman, 

* Sewel's History of the Gtuakers. 



80 INSTITUTION OF THE 

who came from Rhode Island. On going to the 
gallows^ she used these words: "No eye can see, no 
ear can hear, no tongue can utter, and no heart can 
understand the sweet incomes or influence, and the 
refreshings of the spirit of the Lord, which now I 
feel/' 

After her two friends had been hung beside her, 
the halter put about her neck, and her face covered 
with a handkerchief, she was reprieved at the inter- 
cession of her son, and the next day wrote the fol- 
lowing letter: 

"2SM of the 6ih Mo. 1659. 
"Once more to the General Court, assembled in 
Boston, speaks Mary Dyar, even as before: My 
life is not accepted, neither availeth me, in com- 
parison of the lives and liberty of the truth, and 
servants of the living God, for which in the bowels 
of love and meekness, I sought you : yet, neverthe- 
less, with wicked hands have you put two of them 
to death, which makes me to feel, that the mercies 
of the wicked is cruelty; I rather choose to die 
than to live as from you, as guilty of their inno- 
cent blood : Therefore, seeing my request is hin- 
dered, I leave you to the righteous Judge and 
Searcher of all hearts, who, with the pure measure 
of light he hath given to every man to profit 
withal, will, in due time, let you see whose servants 



SABBATH DAV. 81 

you are, and of whom you have taken council; 
which I desire you to search into."* 

The innocent character of these victims, is mate- 
rial to shew the unmixed nature of that bigotry 
which was the result of principles of intolerance, 
called religion, one of the prominent traits of which 
was a strict observance of the Sabbath-day. All 
the appeals that were made were of no use — Mary 
Dyar was hung.f 

It was not alone against the schismatics in reli- 
. gion, that the zeal of the Puritans was directed. 
Children of tender age were believed to be pos- 
sessed with devils, and nineteen persons were pub- 
licly executed in Massachusetts for witchcraft, pro- 
testing their innocence. Chief Justice Marshall, in 
his Life of Washington, says, '^ never was there 
given a more melancholy proof of the degree of 
depravity always to be counted upon, when the 
public passions countenance crime.'^J Many other 
particulars of the same character I might recite 

* Sewel's Hist., folio, p. 227. 

t The son of Mary Dyar came to the State of Delaware, and 
her descendants are among the most respectable inhabitants of 
the United States. The children of Louis M'Lane, late secre- 
tary of the treasury, are her descendants in the seventh descend- 
ing line. Also Judge Milligan of Delaware. Some of her 
personal trinkets still remain in the family. 

t Note 5, to first vol. Life of Washington. 



82 INSTITUTION OF THE 

from the history of the Puritans to elucidate my 
opinion, were it needful to do so. 

In order to a fair understanding of who are Sab- 
bath-breakers; or to use the sectarian term, "dese- 
crators of the Sabbath/^ it is necessary to advert to 
the works upon this subject. As has been stated 
before, they are not precise; but the plainest state- 
ment I can obtain is, that it is unlawful to travel on 
the first day of the week, except on the most urgent 
business; that boats on the canals, and cars on the 
rail-roads, should be stopped; that no mails should 
pass on that day; none go to the post-office, nor 
open their letters; that there should be an end put 
to all social visiting; that there is an evil in Mon- 
day markets, and Monday newspapers, because pre- 
parations must be made for them on the Sunday; 
that the Lord claims from man one day in the 
seven as his right; that the fourth commandment, 
relative to the Sabbath, is a law of perpetual obli- 
gation, binding upon Christians. 

Much stress is laid upon attendance at what is 
called the sanctuary; and, it is added, that the main 
dependence for the consummation of their glorious 
w^ork, is in the intelligent and devoted clergy of the 
state. 

Their ejfforts thus appear to be peculiarly directed 
against Sabbath-breakers, in the strict sense of the 
word, against those who do not keep one day more 



I 



SABBATH DAY. 83 

holy than the rest. There is not one sentence that 
has fallen under my observation, that shows any 
particular efforts against those who profane the other 
days of the week. Of course, as rational men, they 
would disapprove of moral offences, let them be 
committed when they might; but the particular 
scope of their efforts is against boatmen, those who 
navigate canals, travel, visit, and the like, on the 
Sabbath — men generally of good reputation; and 
against all who do not go to what are called places 
of worship; or who spend that particular day in 
idleness. Their doctrine, as I understand it, is 
simply this, that it is through the influence of keep- 
ing that day holy, that men are to be made better 
all the rest of their lives. 

This, I believe, is an honest exposition of their 
views. Each of the things referred to, is mentioned 
in the proceedings of the Harrisburg Convention 
as violations of the Sabbath; and in Scotland, under 
the rule of the Presbyterians, a law was once passed 
against Monday markets. Many other violations 
would probably grow out of these. Thus we may 
understand what is the design of these Sabbatarians, 
what their doctrine is, and what particular class of 
people they allude to, in their term "desecrators of 
the Sabbath.'' 

They not only pretend to say, how" much better 
persons are for strictly observing the day, but also 



84 INSTITUTION OF THE 

how much worse they are for not doing so. I am 
also able to shew the reverse side of the picture; 
not by bare assertions, but by authentic history. 

There was another class of men that arose in 
England, about the same time as the Puritans; they 
came from the same walks in life; they spoke the 
same language, and were subject to the same perse- 
cutions. They were equally with the Puritans op- 
posed to the doctrines of the Arminian church, and 
to the festivals and superstitions of the Romish see. 
There were also men among them of estate — men 
of capacity, of true hearts and undaunted courage. 
The conclusion would naturally be, that, under cir- 
cumstances so similar, they must have been the 
same people. Nothing could be more unlike. 

Their principles were almost the antipodes to 
each other. The Puritan faith was founded upon 
the idea that the Christian religion consisted in obe- 
dience to written precepts, and in the knowledge 
and belief concerning the birth, life, death, and re- 
surrection of Jesus Christ* The Quakers rested 
upon the perception of right and wrong in indi- 
vidual minds. This led one to books, and the other 
to their own hearts; principles so different could but 
lead to different results. 

The Puritans declared that " the form of govern- 

* A work written by Robert Barclay, but a few days before his 
death, being a preface to a letter to a foreign ambassador. 



SABBATH DAY. 85 

nient ordained by the Apostles was aristocratical, 
according to the constitution of the Jewish Sanhe- 
drim^ and was designed as a pattern for the churches 
in after ages;^^ and that the standard of uniformity, 
and which was to be supported by the sword, was 
not liberty of conscience and freedom of profes- 
sion, but the "decrees of provincial and national 
synods.'^* They thus, as a natural consequence, 
became aristocratic themselves, and denied the au- 
thority of the people. 

The principles of the Quakers, repeatedly de- 
clared and summed up by William Penn, were, that 
"the object of government is to support power 
with reverence to the people, and to secure the 
people from the abuse of power.'^f I have before 
alluded to the anti-toleration principles in New 
England; the London Presbyterian ministers in 
their confession of faith, say, "The last error they 
witness against, and in which all agree, is called the 
error of toleration, patronizing and promoting 
all other errors, heresies, and blasphemies whatso- 
ever, under the grossly abused notion of liberty of 
conscience/'* 

Penn says, liberty of conscience is the first step 
to religion. "I have written,'^ he says, "many 

* NeaPs Hist. Puritans, London edition, 1768, vol. I. pp. 136, 
137, and vol. III. p. 360. 
t Proud's History of Pennsylvania. 



86 INSTITUTION OF THE 

apologies to defend it." ^^No party could ever 
bias me to the prejudice of my country, nor any 
personal interest oblige me to her wrong/^ 

"Till I saw my friends, with the kingdom deli- 
vered from the legal bondage, which penal laws, for 
religion, had subjected them to, I could, with no 
satisfaction, think of leaving England; * * * having 
in all this time never had either office or pension, 
and always refusing the rewards, or gratuities, of 
those I have been able to oblige."* 

The first article of the constitution of Pennsyl- 
vania was in these words: "In reverence to God, 
the father of lights and spirits, the author as well 
as object of all divine knowledge, faith and worship, 
I do for me and mine, declare and establish, for the 
first fundamental of the government of this country, 
that every person that doth or shall reside therein, 
shall have and enjoy the free possession of his or 
her faith, and exercise of worship toward God, in 
such way and manner as every such person shall in 
conscience believe is most acceptable to God."f 

These principles were declared at the period 
when the courts in Massachusetts exhibited the de- 
plorable infatuation of condemning innocent per- 
sons to be hung as witches, and were carrying on 
bitter religious persecutions. We have already 

* Penn's letter to Popple. 

t See Historical Register for the year 1723, pp. 107, 108. ' 



SABBATH DAY. 87 

seen the distress and desolation which resulted 
from the Puritan faith. Among the Quakers we 
shall find enlarged views of human nature ; a 
manliness and freedom of action, and the most 
comprehensive views of civil and religious liberty 
which had ever been practically carried into effect. 
Their different views may be still further explained 
by adverting to the remarks of the Quaker woman 
and the priest, referred to on a preceding page. 
The woman said, "the spirit of God is our rule/^ 
the priest replied, "it is not mine, and I hope never 
will be.^^ 

As a necessary consequence of the Quaker faith, 
they were led to an introversion of mind, where 
alone they could have any true knowledge of the 
nature of man. This taught them to reject most 
of those artificial forms and ceremonies, which many 
other sects deemed so essential. The leading point 
of all their discourses was individual accountability 
every day of their lives; and, of course, any idea 
that one day was more holy than another, was in- 
consistent with such a religion. As a day of rest 
and recreation, they could unite with it; but in 
direct opposition to the Puritans, the non-observ- 
ance of the Sabbath, as a holy day, became one of 
their leading doctrines. Whether such opinions 
tend to the debasement of morals, as is pretended 
by Sabbatarians, impartial history may decide. I 



SS INSTITUTION OF THE 

quote the sentiments of the Quakers relative to the 
first day of the week from Barclay. His opponent 
had said "John was in the spirit on the Lord's 
day/* therefore the first day of the week ought to 
be kept;'' Barclay replied, ''how hangs this to- 
gether? Prove that John meant the first day of 
the week. We read much in Scripture of the Day 
of the Lord, which is the Lord's day; but nowhere 
do we find it called the first day of the week, or 
any other natural day; for it is spiritual: and as 
God called the natural light, day, so he calleth the 
spiritual light of his appearance, day." Again, 
"If ye keep one day for his resurrection, why not 
one day for his conception, another for his birth, 
another for the annunciation of the angel, another 
for his being crucified, another for his ascension? 
and then we shall not want holy days in good 
store." In his Apology he says — "We, not seeing 
any ground in Scripture for it, cannot be so super- 
stitious as to believe that either the Jewish Sabbath 
now continues, or that the first day of the week is 
the anti-type thereof, or the true Christian Sabbath; 
which, with Calvin, we believe to have a more 

* I may here observe, that the authority of the whole book 
called '*the Revelations," from which this extract is taken, has 
been a subject of dispute among the earliest writers of the Chris- 
tian era. Many of them did not consider it genuine, and it is 
not known who was its real author. 



SABBATH DAY. 89 

spiritual sense; and therefore we know no moral 
obligation by the fourth commandment or else- 
where, to keep the first day of the week more than 
any other, or as any holiness inherent in it.'^ 

Such is the doctrine of the Quakers. It was the 
result of those principles which enabled them to 
endure the bitterest persecutions in England, with 
unshaken constancy, without, in any one instance, 
plotting or contriving the injury of those who were 
oppressing them. They were beaten and abused, 
but they remained unchanged; they sought for.no 
power or distinction among men ; they yielded not 
to the government, but the government yielded to 
them. 

The conduct of the two sects to the Indians was 
equally remarkable. The Puritans, believing the 
Indians to be heathens, whom it was lawful to de- 
stroy, carried on against them the most desolating 
wars. The Pequods first, and afterwards the Nar- 
ragansetts, with king Philip at their head, were 
nearly exterminated by the sword. Men, women 
and children were butchered, or burnt in their wig- 
wams; some of the prisoners were publicly exe- 
cuted in Boston, many others were sold in the 
West Indies as slaves.* 

In contradistinction to this, I subjoin the follow- 

* Hutchinson's History. 



90 INSTITUTION OF THE 

ing simple and beautiful letter from William Penn 
to the Indians. It is delightful to contemplate such 
sentiments, proceeding as they did from the pure 
principles of peace. 

"London, the ISth ofSth Mo., 1681. 

"My Friends, 

"There is a great God and power that hath made 
the world, and all things therein; to whom you 
and I, and all people, owe their being and well 
being; to whom you and I must one day give an 
account for all that we do in the world. This great 
God hath written his law in our hearts, by which 
we are taught and commanded to love and help, 
and do good to one another, and not to do harm and 
mischief one to another. Now this great God hath 
been pleased to make me concerned in your part of 
the world, and the king of the country where I 
live, hath given me a great province therein. But 
I desire to enjoy it with your love and consent, 
that we may always live together as neighbours 
and friends. Else what would the great God do to 
us who hath made us not to devour and destroy 
one another, but to live soberly and kindly in the 
world? * * ^ * * * I have great love and regard 
towards you; and I desire to win and gain your 
love and friendship by a kind, just, and peaceable 
life; and the people I send are of the same mind. 



SABBATH DAY. &! 

and shall in all things behave themselves accord- 
ingly. And if in any thing any shall offend you, 
or your people, you shall have a full and speedy 
satisfaction for the same, by an equal number of 
just men on both sides, that by no means you may 
have just occasion of being offended against them. 
I shall shortly come to you myself, at which time 
we may more largely and freely confer and dis- 
course of these matters. In the mean time I have 
sent my commissioners to treat with you about 
land, and a firm league of peace. Let me desire 
you to be kind to them and the people, and receive 
these presents and tokens which I have sent you as 
a testimony of my good will to you, and my reso- 
lution to live justly, peaceably, and friendly with 
you.* 

"I am your loving friend, 

" W. Penn.'^ 
In the first law made by Penn are these words: 
"No man shall, by any way or means, or in word 
or deed, affront or wrong any Indian, but he shall 
incur the same penalty of the law as if he had 
committed it against his fellow planter. All dif- 
ferences between the planters and the natives shall 
be ended by twelve men — six planters, and six 
natives,'^ &c.* 



^? 



* Proud's Hist. Pennsylvania. 



92 INSTITUTION OF THE 

Coming among the Indians with feelings of hos- 
tility, the Puritans believed them to be a treacherous 
people, unworthy to be trusted. 

The Quakers, with the olive branch of peace, 
found them kind and docile, easily to be entreated. 
They went in and out among them, never drew a 
sword nor fired a gun, and their dominion was 
everywhere one of peace. 

I have seen an unpublished letter from James 
Logan, who had the principal direction of Indian 
affairs for nearly half a century, in which he says, 
^that whatever he might have been in other respects, 
to the Indians he was always kind, humane, and 
generous.^ It produced an effect on them which 
has never been effaced to the present day. Previous 
to Jay's treaty the influence of the Quakers with 
the Indians was so great, that General Washington 
encouraged several distinguished members of the 
society* to accompany General Lincoln and others 
to Detroit, in the hope of being able to effect a 
peace: and I have in my possession letters from a 
Senator of the United States, during the adminis- 
tration of Jefferson, proposing that the Quakers 

* The names of the commissioners were Governor Lincoln, 
Beverly Randolph, and Timothy Pickering. 

The Ctuakers, John Parrish, William Savery, Jacob Lindley, 
John Elliott, Joseph Moore. 



SABBATH DAY. 93 

should take the whole management of the Indian 
affairs. 

Even at this day there are townships in which the 
Quaker influence has prevailed, where there is no 
one willing to accept the office of magistrate, be- 
cause there is no occasion for one. In one town- 
ship there is no tavern, no magistrate, no constable, 
no clergyman, no lawyer. In another, thickly set- 
tled, it is said, there has never been a case of assault 
and battery since its first settlement, a period of 
more than a hundred years. These people, though 
they open their meeting-houses for public worship 
on the first day and other days of the week, in 
conformity with the practice of the early Chris- 
tians, yet they are, as defined above, to use a mo- 
dern sectarian term, '-'desecrators of the Sabbath.'^ 

If these facts can be sustained, the conclusion is 
irresistible, that so far as respects the Puritans and 
the Quakers, the position taken by the Sabbath 
conventions, and by many sectarians, "that man is 
purified by attending to the fourth commandment, 
and making one day more holy than another,'^ is 
absolutely false. 

The reign of the Sabbatarians in England was 
the era of cant and hypocrisy. The opinions of 
historians are so evidently biassed by their own 
prejudices, that no certain reliance is to be placed 
upon them. It was a period peculiarly marked by 



94 INSTITUTION OP THE 

private feuds and public animosities, by local and 
national calamities, to be traced in a great measure 
to the unrelenting sectarianism of the age; these 
are indications of character which do not show a 
refinement in national morals. 

The same observations apply to this country. 
The events to which I have adverted, form the 
most authentic data which the world can furnish; 
without them, I should still say, that the basis upon 
which the Sabbatarians rest their arguments is 
wrong in principle. 

Laws may be enforced for the observance of the 
first day of the week, but all other things being 
equal, if there is any one State in this Union where 
the Sabbath is more attended to than in the others, 
and I do not know that there is such a State, the 
morals of the inhabitarjts will, I believe, be found 
to be injured thereby. 

An instance of the greatest barbarity towards 
the Indians occurred in Pennsylvania, not exceeded 
by any in New England, in which feelings similar 
to those of the Puritans were manifested, and the 
same language used. 

Some furious zealots among the preachers of the 
Presbyterians, under the notion of extirpating the 
heathen from the earth, as Joshua did of old, sur- 
rounded a small settlement in the Conestoga manor, 
burnt their wigwams, and butchered all the pe^ople 



SABBATH DAY. 95 

they could find. The magistrates of Lancaster 
brought the others into the workhouse, a strong 
building, as a place of safety; they were followed ; 
the workhouse was broken open, and every one of 
them, men, women and children, were murdered in 
cold blood.* 

The account does not mention, but I have no 
doubt of the fact, as they were of the same sect, 
that they were men zealous for the observance of 
the Sabbath-day. It was perfectly consistent that 
they should observe all the parts of the Mosaic 
law. 

I do but justice to my subject, in bringing into 
juxtaposition, extracts from three remarkable ad- 
dresses to king Charles II. on his restoration, in 
order to show the aspect of Sabbatarian and Anti- 
Sabbatarian doctrines, when they approach royalty. 
Either of them is too long to be inserted here, but 
I believe I preserve the spirit of each in the por- 
tions I have selected. They fully sustain the cha- 
racter of the two people as developed in these 
pages. 

Each address alludes to the persecutions to which 
their party had been subject, and seems to ask the 
interposition of the king. 

The Puritans say : 

* See Frond's History of Pennsylvania, vol. II. 



96 



INSTITUTION OF THE 



"Most Gracious and dread 
Sovreign : 

" May it please your majesty 
in the day wherein you happily 
say, you now know, that you 
are again king over your Bri- 
tish Israel, to cast a favourable 
eye upon your poor Mephibo- 
seths now, and by reason of 
lameness, in respect of distance, 
not until now, appearing in 
your presence, we mean New 
England, kneeling, with the 
rest of your subjects, before 
your majesty, as her restored 
king. * * * * We present 
this scrip, the transcript of our 
loyal hearts, into your royal 
hands, wherein we crave leave: 

" To supplicate your majesty 
for your gracious protection of 
us, in the continuance of our 
civil privileges. * * * * 

*' With a religious salutation 
of our prayers, we (prostrate at 
your royal feet) beg pardon for 
this our boldness ; craving final- 
ly that our names may be en- 
rolled among your majesty's 
most humble subjects and sup- 
plicants." 

" To the King's most excellent 

majesty. 
*' The humble supplication of 



" To Charles 2nd, King, &c. 

"Robert Barclay, a servant 
of Jesus Christ, called of God 
to the dispensation of the gos- 
pel, wishes health and salva- 
tion. As it is inconsistent with 
the truth I bear, so it is far 
from me to use this epistle as 
an engine to flatter thee. * * * 
To God alone I owe what I 
have, and that more immedi- 
ately in matters spiritual; and 
therefore to him alone, and to 
the service of His truth, I dedi- 
cate whatever work he brings 
forth in me. 

" Thou hast tasted of pros- 
perity and adversity, thou 
knowest w^hat it is to be ban- 
ished thy native countr)^ to be 
overruled as well as to rule, 
and sit upon the throne; and 
being oppressed, thou hast rea- 
son to know how hateful the 
oppression is both to God and 
man. 

" God hath done great things 
for thee ; he hath sufficiently 
shown thee, that it is by Him 
princes rule, and that he can 
pull down and set up at his 
pleasure. He hath often faith- 
fully warned thee by his ser- 
vants, since he restored thee to 
thy royal dignity, that thy heart 



SABBATH DAY. 



97 



the General Court of the 

Massachusett Colony in New 

England. 
" Dread Sovreign : 

*' If your poor subjects, who 
have removed themselves into 
a remote corner of the earth to 
enjoy peace with God and man, 
do, in this day of their trouble, 
prostrate themselves at your 
royal feet, and beg your favour, 
we hope it will be graciously 
accepted by your majesty. And 
that as the high place you sus- 
tain on earth, doth number you 
here among the gods, so you 
will imitate the God of heaven, 
in being ready to maintain the 
cause of the afflicted, and the 
right of the poor, and to receive 
their cries and addresses to that 
end."* 



might not wax wanton against 
him to forget his mercies 
and providence towards thee; 
whereby he might permit thee 
to be soothed up and lulled 
asleep in thy sins by the flatter- 
ing of court parasites, who by 
their fawning are the ruin of 
many princes. 

"God Almighty, who hath 
so signally hitherto visited thee 
with his love, so touch and 
reach thy heart, ere the day of 
thy visitation be expired, that 
thou mayst effectually turn to 
him so as to improve thy place 
and station for his name. So 
wisheth, so prayeth, 

" Thy faithful friend and 
subject, 

" Robert BARCLAY."t 



Considering the great hostility the Puritans had 
evinced towards royalty, that they had been chiefly 
instrumental in the dethronement of king Charles 
I., these epistles to his son may be considered as 
evincing the perfection of cant and hypocrisy. 

Voltaire, in his letters concerning the English 



* Notes to Marshall's Life of Washington, and Hutchinson's 
History, 
t Barclay's Works. 



98 INSTITUTION OF THE 

nation, says of this letter of Robert Barclay, 
"This epistle is not filled with mean flattering en- 
comiums, but abounds with bold touches in favour 
of truth, and with the wisest counsels;'^ and he 
adds, "it was so happy in its effects, as to put an 
end to persecutions against the Quakers/'* 

In the imperfections of men every thing is liable 
to abuse; there is a vein of enthusiasm in the 
human mind, which men catch at, and it leacj^ them 
astray. 

There were decided marks of fanaticism in the 
early existence both of the Puritans and the 
Quakers. It has existed in. all sects, and always 
will exist as the fruit of imperfection. Whilst 
sects are composed of a mass of individuals more 
or less imperfect, societies will always be obnoxious 
to censure. Principles are not to be judged by 
things which may be considered as exceptions to 
general rules. There was this remarkable differ- 
ence in the two cases, that in the Puritans it settled 
down into cool deliberate bigotry, intolerance, and 
bloodshed; among the Quakers it resulted in the 
most noble and enlarged views of human nature — 
and they maintained a peace such as had never be- 
fore been seen, with a people, who were deemed 
by other sects, to be infidels and barbarians. 

* Bayle's Dictionary, vol. JL, p. 657. 



SABBATH DAY. 99 

This remarkable difference was not the effect of 
chance, and its causes are worthy the attention of 
every intelligent mind. There are but two prin- 
ciples of action, truth and falsehood. All will 
admit, I think, at the present day, that what the 
Puritans called their religion, as respects these 
things, was superstition and intolerance; but it was 
not more intolerant than the principles of the 
modern Sabbatarians. They have the same views, 
they speak the same language, and refer to the 
same doctrines. As individuals, they may be good 
and excellent men, but it is the nature of sectarian- 
ism to debase the character. Hence it is, that men 
acting as bodies, do things that they would abhor as 
individuals, and the tender mercies of the present 
Sabbatarians are not to be trusted. In the progress 
of society, public executions for heresy, are no 
longer permitted. All with one accord would re- 
volt from such spectacles; but in reality there is 
just as much reason to object to the doctrines pro- 
mulgated by the Sabbatarians of the present day. 
Is it to truth, or equity, or justice, that they refer? 
No such thing! It is to the Mosaic code, to the 
ten commandnients; and these being first establish- 
ed as of supreme authority, truth is to be moulded 
thereto. This was the great source of error in the 
Puritans; it is written ordinances that at the pre- 
sent day are the source of those complex notions 



100 INSTITUTION OP THE 

and opinions on the subject of religion, from which 
so many honest and sincere minds turn away in 
disgust. 

Of course, the more men have of such a religion 
as this, if religion it may be called, the worse they 
are; and there is evidence to show that the minis- 
ters and elders were more rigorous and severe than 
the common people. The great source of truth is 
in man's own bosom; when he departs from that, 
he erects altars to strange gods which betray him. 
He is cast afloat on the great ocean of uncertainty, 
and he takes up with any doctrine which may coin- 
cide with his own preconceived opinions. The 
Puritans, as I have said before, were not intrinsi- 
cally bad men. The chief justice in Boston, after 
he had condemned many innocent persons to die, 
declared that he had acted in the fear of the Lord. 
He was but the executor of the law; the sectarian 
legislators were more to blame than he. With all 
their pretensions they had not learned the first 
lesson in religion. 

It is a noble but a costly victim, involving often 
our dearest prejudices, to offer on the altar of truth 
our own self love. But until men do this, they 
might as well expect to sow their grain in the 
desert and reap a harvest, as to be able clearly to 
distinguish right from wrong. The Puritans set 
up the supremacy of their own church, of their 



SABBATH DAY. 101 

own faith and doctrines, and made truth yield 
thereto. Depending upon the observance of the 
outward Sabbath, they seemed to know nothing of 
the true Sabbath, of the silent but all pow^erful ope- 
ration of truth in men^s minds. They denied that 
the Spirit of God was their guide, and w^ith the 
New Testament in their hands, they endeavoured 
to establish the Mosaic code. They had been per- 
secuted, and not understanding the powerful influ- 
ence of the principles of peace, revenge was en- 
gendered, to be wreaked upon all who might come 
in their way. From being persecuted, they came 
to be persecutors themselves. 

If they had had good and true hearts, they 
would have found some standard of justice on which 
to have founded their ordinances, without going 
back to the Mosaic code. There are sentiments 
and feelings to be developed within us, as exalted 
as ever existed in any other people. We may talk 
of ancient sages, and of the philosophers of other 
generations, but what sources of truth had they 
that we have not? 

The laws of all countries necessarily take their 
type from the character of the people : those of one 
nation can never be exactly adapted to another, 
because no two were ever under precisely the same 
circumstances. 

The only true foundation for the laws and ordi- 
9 



102 INSTITUTION OP THE 

nances of men, is that sense of justice and truth, 
which can alone adapt them to our respective situ- 
ations. It is that which purifies and elevates every 
individual, so far as he adheres to it; and as it ele- 
vates individuals, it perfects nations. 

Locke, the great writer on the human mind, 
always professed religion, and yet his doctrine went 
to destroy it. He travelled far to find some nation 
destitute of religious belief, by which he could 
establish his theory, but he found none! In place 
of that sublime science, the study of the man with- 
in, inhabiting, in the whole scope of the intellect, a 
world more extensive than the world without us, 
his doctrine taught that we were to look to the 
senses for the knowledge of truth, that it was there 
alone that it was to be found. 

It was this false principle that blinded the eyes 
of the Puritans, so that they were unable to distin- 
guish right from wrong. They thought they were 
Christians, while they were worse than barbarians. 

We see an apple fall to the ground, under the 
unchanging laws of gravity, without seeming to 
consider that the laws of mind are equally immu- 
table. 

To use a favourite expression of the Puritans, 
they acted " by the eternal decrees of God ;'^ their 
moral principles were debased by what they called 
their religion; and their conduct was in unison 



_JILUI>' 



SABBATH DAY. 103 

therewith. They laid claim to the greatest holi- 
ness; some of them even went so far as to say that 
Jesus Christ was the first Puritan. The good men 
among them, were made so, not by what they call- 
ed their religion, but in despite of it; and this ap- 
plies to every individual who is seeking for religion 
through the medium of the senses. They advocate 
the idea that there is nothing in the mind that has 
not been in the senses. This was the doctrine that 
Locke and Hobbes, and men of that school, tried to 
establish, to which Leibnitz, the German philoso- 
pher, made this reply: ^'Nothing except the intel- 
lect itself;" and no man, however acute, has been 
able to deny this position. But whether or not, it 
has little bearing to the practical man, who may 
easily understand that we can have no real know- 
ledge of truth, virtue, and godliness, from the opi- 
nions of other men. If it was necessary, and this 
the proper place, I might advert to the singularly 
discordant and heterogeneous constitution Locke 
himself furnished for the Carolinas. It manifested 
how an eminent writer on the human mind, might 
be entirely ignorant of the nature of man. The 
constitution produced nothing but animosity till it 
was abandoned.* 

The doctrines neither of the Puritans nor the 

♦ See Washington's Life, vol.1. 



1^4 INSTITUTION OF THE 

Quakers were ever fully carried out; those of the 
Puritans, so far as they led the minds of men to 
the senses, to the eye, or the ear, as the source of 
truth, naturally led to the destruction of all religion. 
This influence was continually checked by that 
grace of God which the priest denied to be his rule, 
but which was still operating to save them from 
further degradation. If it had not been so, all the 
noble feelings of human nature would have been 
destroyed; and instead of persecuting those only 
who were aliens, they would, as it suited their self- 
ishness, have cut each other's throats. 

The errors of the Puritans have been acknow- 
ledged by their relaxing and abandoning all their 
laws, while the Quakers hold on their way. As a 
sect, they may rise or fall— that on the broad scale is 
of little consequence— while their principles gather 
strength from generation to generation, and these 
are likely to endure till a ceremonial religion shall 
be abandoned, as it now is, to a considerable extent, 
in every enlightened mind, and until the distinction 
of days shall be done away. That man, whoever 
he may be, and wherever found, without regard to 
sect or nation, who is conscientiously pursuing the 
path of duty, according to the sense of right which 
he may find in his own bosom, is purified and ele- 
vated thereby, though he may attend no church, 
and work every day in the week. 



SABBATH DAY. 105 

The history of the Puritans and the Quakers, 
however imperfectly their principles may have 
been developed, exhibits, in a remarkable degree, 
the difference between a religion that had for 
a primary object the observance of the Sab- 
bath day, and one that, without making any dis- 
tinction, sought to do right every day in the week. 
I advert to the Quakers only to illustrate a prin- 
ciple; all that is valuable in their doctrines is com- 
mon to the whole human family. Whatever men 
may think of their sectarianism, and of that there 
can be but one opinion, their exertions have tend- 
ed to ameliorate the condition of society;* and 
in this State, they resulted in a purer government 
than had ever been maintained before. They have 
proved that society can exist without war, when in 
all similar cases the sword was deemed absolutely 
needful: they have proved that society can exist 

* The ascendancy of the Cluakers in the province of Penn- 
sylvania, ceased about the time of the old French war, when 
Braddock was defeated, after they had held it about seventy 
years, because they did not choose to imbrue their hands in the 
blood of their fellow men. A vast numher of people had come 
into the province, who were aliens to principles of peace; fight- 
ing was a necessary consequence, and they abandoned the go- 
vernment. The venerable Isaac Norn's, a distinguished Gtuaker, 
for many years speaker of the house of representatives, solicited 
year after year not to be elected, but they refused all his entrea- 
ties, and continued to elect him until he would stay no longer. 
9* 



106 INSTITUTION OF THE 

better without than with an established clergy: they 
have proved, and are still proving, the errors that 
are promulgated by Sabbath conventions, and by 
Sabbatarians of every grade; and I may ask every 
candid and inquiring mind, whether views that pro- 
duce such extraordinary results, are to be easily 
abandoned or lightly esteemed.* 

It has been my lot to know many excellent and 
virtuous individuals, who practically carried these 
principles into effect. One, an eminent and dis- 
tinguished minister in the Society of Friends, re- 
spected and esteemed by all, worked in his fields 
on that day as often as it suited him to do so, and 
frequently expressed the satisfaction he derived 
from it. It accorded with his sense of right, and I 
never heard of inconvenience or loss resulting to 
him or others from such a course. 

The leading principle of the Quakers, so true, 
and so exalted as it is, has been so much mixed up 
with sectarianism, with creeds, and peculiarities of 
discipline, and of dress, the natural effects of im- 
perfection, and perhaps inherent in the nature of 
sects, but which have nothing to do with religion, 
that the world seems never to have given them 
credit for what they really deserve. It is other- 

♦ See Works of Sidney Smith. Article Gtuakers. 



SABBATH DAY. 107 

wise with the Puritans. Their principles are not 
identified with those of the present inhabitants of 
New England, they have generally rejected them; 
still their statesmen appear to be disposed to give 
them praise where they never deserved it. They 
seem to depend upon the ignorance and credulity 
of the people, when they ascribe the civil and 
religious liberty of this country to the Puritan 
fathers.* Even the present season it is proposed 
for the people to give thanks hy law for their Puri- 
tan descent.f 

The opinions I have expressed are my own; 
whether sects or parties of men shall be pleased 
or displeased, has not been a subject of considera- 
tion. My only object has been, to elucidate great 
principles in morals, which have no relation to 
sects. 

Every age and country bears witness to the de- 
moralizing effects of a ceremonial religion governed 
by formal rules. The Suttees of Hindostan suffer 
themselves to be consumed on the funeral piles of 
their husbands, from the perversion of what they 
deem the holy books of the Vedas. 



* The Roman Catholics of Maryland, and the Baptists of 
Rhode Island, deserve much more credit than the Puritans. 

t See Governor Briggs' proclamation of the present season for 
Thanksgiving day. 



108 INSTITUTION OF THE 

The Jews said, "We have a law, and by our law 
he ought to die.'^ 

Mahometanism and Mormonism, Romanism and 
Calvinism, and all the peculiar doctrines of sects 
through which they persecute each other, even unto 
death, are to be traced to this one source. The 
great moral principles of human nature, are the 
same throughout the world. As men depart from 
these, the reformation of society is retarded, and 
people become so benighted, as publicly to declare, 
that no nation nor individual can be correct, who 
does not hold one day more holy than another. 

Perfection is not claimed for any class in society; 
but there is a simplicity in truth, a purity in virtue, 
an unostentatious performance of the every day 
duties of life, which is totally distinct from all 
sectarian movements, and which is the sum and 
substance of vital religion. The errors of the Sab- 
batarians may be shown in many ways. 

The Germans, as a class, both Protestants and 
Catholics, are remarkable for a non-observance of 
the first day of the week; they are equally remark- 
able for the simplicit}^ of their character. I make 
the following extracts from two works on Germany. 

"Nowhere on the continent, not even in Pro- 
testant Germany, is the keeping of Sunday regard- 
ed as in England. Shops remain in a great measure 
open; all sorts of theatres and places of amusement 



SABBATH DAY. 109 

are open; and the people look on the strictness of 
England, as a species of gloomy ascetic severity, 
which makes no part of real religion. ^^ Again: 
"On Sunday, great numbers of shops in most 
towns are open, things are brought home from dif- 
ferent makers as on another day, and ladies sit 
knitting in company as usual.'' 

The same author, after speaking much of the 
general superior moral character of the Germans, 
concludes by saying, "We may safely assert, that 
there is no country in Europe, in which there is so 
great an amount of comfort and contentment en- 
joyed. All are industrious, moderate in their de- 
sires, and disposed to enjoy themselves in a simple 
and unexpensive sociality.''* 

From another work I extract the following: "It 
may be said, to the glory of the German nation, 
that she is almost incapable of that practised sup- 
pleness which makes all truths bend to all interests, 
and sacrifices every engagement to every calcula- 
ition. * * * Religion in Germany exists in the 
|yery bottom of the heart. * * * The honesty of 
the inhabitants was such, that a proprietor at Leipsic 
laving fixed on an apple tree (which he had planted 
ton the borders of the public walk) a notice, desiring 
[that people would not gather the fruit, not a single 

* Rural and Domestic Life in Germany, by William Howitt. 



110 INSTITUTION OF THE 

apple was stolen from it for ten years. I have seen 
this apple tree with a feeling of respect; had it been 
the tree of the Hesperides, they would no more 
have touched its golden fruit than its blossom/^* 

I am not supposing that people are made better 
simply by not keeping one day more holy than 
the rest; this would be as false an opinion as that 
of the Sabbatarians. They are made better by a 
purified life, which has no regard for days. 

No doubt the Germans have their imperfections 
like other people; my only object is to shew that 
they are not debased by their non-observance of the 
Sabbath; that they are not worse than other nations 
who are strict in the observance of the day. 

The Mahometans are said to keep the Sabbath 
with more strictness than any other people. True, 
it may be that they are not Christians; but of what 
consequence is this ; they hold to the Scriptures as 
strictly as we do; and the Harrisburg Convention 
says, "The Sabbath is the medium through which 
all the accumulated light of ages past, (ages of pro- 
phecy, of miracle, and of redemption,) comes to the 
present generation ; it is practically as valuable as 
the cross which it reveals, the salvation whfch it 
proffers, and the undying spirits which it saves. ^' 
These men ought not to object to Mahometans be- 

* Holstein's Germany. 



SABBATH DAY. Ill 

cause they are not Christians. I leave it for those 
who are well acquainted with the character of the 
Turks to say, whether they have been refined and 
purified by their observance of the Sabbath day. 

But I need not go to distant times, and to foreign 
countries, to elucidate my position. In the Boston 
work referred to, this paragraph occurs: "A distin- 
guished merchant, long accustomed to extensive 
observation and experience, and who had gained an 
uncommon knowledge of men, said, ^When I see 
one of my apprentices or clerks riding out on the 
Sabbath, on Monday I dismiss him. Such a one 
cannot be trusted.' '^ 

I know not who the merchant was, nor where he 
lived; but I hesitate not in the opinion, that he 
lived in some country where it was deemed neces- 
sary to keep one day more holy than the rest, and 
the morals of the people were degraded by it. So- 
ciety 'was burthened with unnecessary forms — 
people were made ofienders, where no evil was 
committed, and the necessary consequence followed 
— a depravity of morals. 

Such a thing could not have occurred in any 
other place. It has been my lot to witness the 
management of large mercantile and manufacturing 
concerns; I have been an attentive observer of the 
events passing before me. Those persons who have 
been in the capacity of clerks and apprentices, filling 



112 INSTITUTION OP THE 

highly responsible situations, have been seen and 
encouraged to ride out on the first day of the week, 
whenever it suited them to do so; and it is not a few 
of them that have come under my own immediate 
observation, and I have not known one of them, 
in a period of many years, to be a defaulter in any 
way; nor did the idea of such an event, from such 
a cause, ever enter into my mind. If the account 
is true, and it is published, I suppose, for truth, the 
conclusion seems inevitable, that the merchant re- 
ferred to has been associated with persons whose 
morals are more degraded than those in some other 
parts of the country. 

Before entering into a more particular considera- 
tion of Sabbath Conventions, I may say, that I 
design no disrespect to the individual members. 
There is not a feeling in my mind that would call 
in question the entire right which they have to hold 
their own opinions, and to sustain them by any 
arguments which they may think proper. But 
when they attempt to cast odium upon men who 
differ from themselves, and denounce judgments 
upon them, not only in this life, but in a life to 
come — thus arrogating to themselves a power which 
has never been givenAto them — when they profess 
to take the Scriptures for their rule of faith and 
practice, and then pervert them to the injury of 
their fellow men, it may be considered a matter of 



SABBATH DAY. 113 

some interest to shew^ that according to their own 
professed authority, they have no license for their 
conduct, no argument to support them. 

Few men are free from superstition, and it would 
be equally rare to find that man in whom the sim- 
plicity of religion was fully developed. Pascal, 
called by Bayle, "one of the sublimest geniuses the 
world ever produced,^^ kept what was called a spi- 
ritual almanac, and spent some years of his life in 
visiting those churches where the bones of martyrs 
were exhibited, and in practising solemnities con- 
nected with them, peculiar to the Romish church.* 
Yet he is represented to have been a singularly \ 
humble minded Christian. A thousand instances 
might be given of sincere and devoted feelings con- 
nected with gross superstitions. 

The Sabbatarians, when they bring up the laws 
of Moses, may be ranked among the relic-hunters 
of former days. Their views upon the subject, 
appear to be entirely the result of superstition; 
when put in practice they produce intolerance; but 
it does not follow, that, in other points of character, 
they may not be good men; and in writing very 
plainly about these conventions, as I must do, if I 
write at all, I call not in question the individual 
integrity of the members. 

* Pascal's Life, by his Sister, Mrs. Perier, p. 40. 
10 



114 INSTITUTION OF THE 

Having stated that there is no authority of any 
kind to sanction a religious observance of particular 
days, and enforced it by the doctrines of the New 
Testament, I may now add, that those writings 
speak equally distinctly of a Christian Sabbath, 
which has no application to any particular time; 
but to that quiet and rest, which is the result of 
conscious integrity, which no man can give or take 
from his fellow man; which applies to every in- 
dividual on the face of the earth, to the learned 
man and the ignorant man, to the prince and the 
beggar. This Sabbath is enforced by no law; it is 
interrupted by none of the ordinances of men; it 
is referred to abundantly, both in the Old and New 
Testaments. Without making quotations, I will 
mention only the fourth chapter of the Hebrews. 
Though they give it no name, men feel it, and un- 
derstand it, in their everyday walks of life, in their 
intercourse with society, in attending to all the 
complicated duties of their existence. It belongs 
to no sect, to no church, to no nation or colour; it 
is as applicable to the boatman navigating the canal 
on Sunday, and to the travellers on our rail-roads on 
that day, as to any other class of society. This is 
the only Christian Sabbath; I could sustain this 
opinion by abundant quotations from the writings 
of honest and estimable men of every age and sta- 
tion. If it is true, these Sabbatarians, with all their 



SABBATH DAY. 115 

professions, are the real Sabbath-breakers! Such 
surely they are! The question resolves itself sim- 
ply into this^ whether the laws of Moses, or the 
doctrines of the New Testament, are of paramount 
authority. I have no object but truth; I have 
nothing to gain or to lose by sustaining any par- 
ticular opinion; but if there is truth in the New 
Testament, there is but one Christian Sabbath. Its 
pages, as I have heretofore shown, reject a Sabbath 
of days, and sustain the other, and those who adopt 
any other opinion may, in this respect, be consider- 
ed to be under the legal Jewish dispensation. 

From the sentiments of Calvin, Penn, and others, 
which I have quoted, it seems to follow, as a neces- 
sary consequence, that the observance of days is 
only to be considered as a dead weight and burthen 
on society, and hence productive of evil. 

Pennington, a minister of the gospel, of extra- 
ordinary character, after saying very distinctly and 
at large, that the authority of the ten command- 
ments is abrogated, carries the doctrine of Calvin 
and Penn to its legitimate issue. Speaking of the 
true Christian Sabbath, he says, "whosoever now 
runs back to the law in the letter, to take up any 
command as held forth in it, will be found a breaker 
thereof in spirit, even one that hath more gods than 
the Lord, a maker of images or likenesses of things 
in heaven, or things in earth, if not of both, a 



116 INSTITUTION OF THE 

taker of the name in vain, a profaner of the Sab- 
bath/^* This is plain doctrine, and it is no more 
plain than true. It equally applies to all the Sab- 
bath conventions, and to every individual, who, 
rejecting the true Christian Sabbath, is endeavour- 
ing to enforce a Sabbath of days. It was from the 
radical unsoundness of their opinions upon the sub- 
ject, that the Harrisburg Convention before referred 
to, found such difficulty in deciding whether the 
day should be called "Sabbath,^^ "Christian Sab- 
bath,'^ or "Lord's Day;^^ and in the National Con- 
vention, recently held in Baltimore, the question, 
"which was the Lord's day,'^ was productive, ac- 
cording to the report which has been published, of 
a long dispute, and called forth "much feeling, in- 
temperate zeal, and harsh expressions.' ' 

This was in harmony with the doctrines them- 
selves; they produced, as we have seen, discord and 
animosity in Old and in New England, substituting 
cant and hypocrisy for the vitality of truth; and so 
far as the people of these United States may be in- 
duced to adopt them, it may be considered to be 
both an individual and national calamity. Sabbath 
conventions are everywhere of the same character, 
they speak the same language, and hence what may 
be said of one, will apply to all. 

* Pennington's Works, part 1st, p. 259, folio. 



SABBATH DAY. 117 

An ex-prewsident of the United States presided 
over the one held at Baltimore, declaring first that 
he did not understand the subject, and quoting, as 
the account says, the text before referred to, which 
was uttered as part of a reproof to the Jews for 
their observance of the Sabbath-day: "The Sabbath 
was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.'^ 

I have not leisure for any extensive consideration 
of the subjects brought into view, but I shall touch 
upon some of the most prominent in their proper 
places. 

After having exhausted many efibrts of a com- 
pulsory nature, they now speak of using only per- 
suasive means to efiect their object. How sincere 
soever they may be, this in its nature is impossible, 
their prejudices are certain to betray them. The 
tree brings forth fruit according to its kind, and the 
spirit of peace, which alone produces kindness and 
jood feeling among men, is not evinced on a single 
3age of any of the Sabbath works which I have 
seen. 

We are told, by an unanimous vote of the Har- 

fisburg Convention, that if we withhold our contri- 

3utions to the funds necessary to maintain the 

Ifamilies of the missionaries, "we and our children 

[must abide the fearful consequences here and here- 

Jafter.'^ 

This is not persuasion, it is denunciation ! 
10^ 



118 INSTITUTION OF THE 

These conventions bear the names of state and 
national conventions; but the people at large have 
very little interest in them. Four-fifths of the 
persons in attendance at Harrisburg, were from 
four or five of the neighbouring counties, or from 
those whence access was easiest. Two synods of 
Presbyterian clergymen were represented, (for such 
I understand to be the meaning of the word 
"classes;'^*) and in one instance which came under 
my observation, in a population of several hundred 
voters, about twenty persons met in a Presbyterian 
church, and appointed six of their number to repre- 
sent that district. 

This I suppose to be a fair instance of the way 
in which the delegates to such conventions are ap- 
pointed. They appear to be almost entirely the 
work of clergymen; it is they who take the active 
part in all the proceedings; they are made to sing 
their own praises to an extent highly remarkable ; 
and an intention is everywhere evident to support 
the clerical influence. 

People may honestly take different views of the 
same subject; but when writers descend to false 
reasoning, and puerile statements, in order, as it 
would seem, to influence men who have not time 
to examine or reflect for themselves, they pursue a 

* Hume's History of England, vol. VI. p. 335, note, v 



SABBATH DAY. 119 

course in which honourable men would hardly be 
willing to follow them. This applies peculiarly to 
the proceedings of Sabbath conventions. The 
minds of the members seem to be deeply tinctured 
with superstition and prejudice, and, in my appre- 
hension, there is scarcely a statement they publish, 
which, in all its bearings, is strictly true. 

The observations I make I shall class under the 
following heads: 

First — The judgments of the Lord upon Sab- 
bath-breakers. 

Second — The records that the inmates of our 
prisons are generally Sabbath-breakers. 

Third — The influence of the Sabbath on man in 
a physical point of view. 

Fourth — The descent of property. 

Fifth — The influence of the clergy. 

Sixth — Arguments drawn from closing the courts 
on Sunday. 

Firsts as to the judgments of the Lord. 

It is at variance with facts, and the common 
sense observations of the age, that the judgments of 
the Lord are peculiarly heaped upon Sabbath- 
breakers. If there is any truth in these pages, 
Sabbath-breakers, as they are called by sectarians, 
are not worse than any other class of society. Even 
if they were bad men, the rain descends and the 
sun shines upon them, and the providence of God 



120 INSTITUTION OF THE 

watches continually over them for good. The 
ideas promulgated upon this subject are calculated 
to operate upon the fears of the people, and appear 
to be founded wholly in delusion and superstition. 

One of the conventions recommends that the 
facts relative to "the voice of God in his provi- 
dence'^ for violating the Sabbath, be collected and 
circulated. The Boston work enumerates a great 
number of cases of the kind. 

It says that a man and his wife were so anxious 
to arrive in New York in time to take the steam- 
boat Lexington, that they travelled a great portion 
of the Sabbath, arrived in season, took the boat 
and perished. 

It is not alleged that the hundred others who 
lost their lives on that occasion were Sabbath- 
breakers, and if this fact proves anything, it proves 
too much. That it was not the Sabbath-breakers 
who were the peculiar objects of divine wrath, but 
the Sabbath-keepers! or that for the sake of pun- 
ishing this one Sabbath-breaker and his wife, ninety 
and nine innocent persons perished! 

One man lost his barn by lightning as a judg- 
ment for violating the Sabbath; another from a 
fire communicated from a gun; others failed; some 
were not equally successful in making salt who 
worked on Sunday; some did not succeed in fish- 
ing, and the like. Such reasoning may suit super- 



SABBATH DAY. 121 

stitioiij but it deserves very little attention from 
rational minds. 

Perhaps some of the men who have promulgated 
these sentiments, have been themselves sufferers, 
have had their barns burnt, and been subjected to 
distress and difficulty of various kinds. Do these 
things never happen to those who keep the Sab- 
bath? There are cars that have, for a number of 
years, started from Philadelphia as regularly on the 
first day of the week as on any other day. Have 
they been more subject to accidents on that day? 
Have the cars broken down, and the passengers 
been maimed and killed ? This was a fair oppor- 
tunity of testing the truth of their positions, but 
no such inquiry seems to have been made, only, as 
it would seem, because the truth was not wanted. 

In the midst of their professions of using no- 
thing but "persuasion,^' their object appears to 
have iSeen to use fear and superstition to effect their 
purpose. The National Convention, in its address 
to the people of the United States, degrades itself 
by saying, that we are warned by the "awful pro- 
vidences of God'' against the profanation of their 
Christian Sabbath. I hesitate not to say that the 
statement is not true. 

Respecting the inmates of our prisons. 

It is said that a large proportion of such persons 
did not value the Sabbath, and were in the habit of 



122 INSTITUTION OF THE 

profaning it, and a false argument is founded there- 
on, that this is the principal cause of their errors. 
Men of depraved minds will naturally profane the 
Sabbath, but they equally profane every other day 
in the week. Pious and good men, who are op- 
posed to the movements of the Sabbatarians, and 
object to Sabbath conventions, and whom they 
term "desecrators of the Sabbath," are as much 
opposed, nay, more than sectarians are likely to be, 
to profaneness of any kind whatever. 

As I have stated in the foregoing pages, the 
eflforts of these conventions are directed against 
those who are peculiarly Sabbath-breakers — against 
men who are pursuing their lawful callings during 
six days, and are not, to use their own expression, 
"giving the seventh peculiarly unto God." 

" Six days of the week alone are the property of 
mankind for the performance of secular business — 
the seventh belongs to God, and whosoever does 
not devote one day in seven to the worship of our 
Heavenly Father, is a robber of God." This sen- 
timent is published as the third resolution of the 
National Sabbath Convention; it contains the shock- 
ing idea, that six days belong to man, and but one 
to God. 

Can they show any instance of people who pur- 
sue the paths of rectitude, do righteously and justly 
on six days, and yet are licentious on the first-day 



SABBATH DAY. 123 

of the week? If they can, their argument on this 
subject may have some force. Have the inmates of 
our prisons been of this character? Surely not! I 
presume no such instance can be found, and yet 
they speak of it as if it was so. 

But let us look at the other side of the question. 
How many Sabbath-keepers are violating the moral 
law! How many are robbing the poor of their 
bread! Are these debased by keeping the Sabbath? 
There is as much argument on one side of the ques- 
tion as on the other. 

Such reasoning may suit sectarians, but it does 
not suit honesty and truth. It is unjust to attempt 
to cast opprobrium upon honest and excellent men, 
because the inmates of our prisons have profaned 
that day in common with every other. 

I have stated that there was but one Christian 
Sabbath, and the only real breakers of it, are those 
who are attempting to establish another in its place. 
But taking the ground of the Sabbatarians, and 
using their own misnomer, it may safely be said, 
not only that all the inmates of our prisons, but that 
the whole community are Sabbath-breakers. The 
members of these conventions are far from keeping 
the day as they acknowledge it ought to be kept; 
none of them come up to the Jewish standard — few 
to that which was established by the Puritans, nor 
to their own standard of right; and without laying 



124 INSTITUTION OF THE 

the sin particularly to the inmates of our prisons, 
they should first lay it at their own door. 

The people of the New England states are often 
referred to as keeping the Sabbath more strictly 
than some others. I have long been of the opinion, 
from a general course of reasoning upon the subject, 
that if the prisons of this country were examined, 
there would be found to be more natives of New- 
England in them, in comparison with the popula- 
tion of those states, than of any other part of the 
Union. If it is not so, it would probably be because 
their greater skill enables them to elude the shackles 
of the law. Knowledge is power, as well for evil 
as for good. 

An unpropitious soil has led them to greater 
thrift and industry; and this, though highly estima- 
ble in itself, has had its attendant evils, from which 
an artificial religion has not been able to protect 
them. The official reports respecting pauperism, 
show that this evil also exists there to a great 
extent, perhaps greater than elsewhere under simi- 
lar circumstances. I have not the tables to refer to, 
but have seen it stated, that in some places, without 
embracing those who require transient aid, one 
fiftieth of the inhabitants are paupers. Whilst I 
am ready to accord to New England all the merit 
it deserves, I cannot believe that its Sabbath-keep- 
ing habits have improved the morals of the people. 



SABBATH DAY. 125 

It may have produced cant and hypocrisy, but not 
truth. 

The influence of the Sabbath on man in a 
physical point of view. 

The great physiological truth, that man cannot 
work unceasingly, is brought forward continually to 
sustain the "Christian Sabbath'^ as a religious rite. 

No truth is more certain than that there is a 
maximum to the labours of men and horses, and 
inanimate machines, which cannot be exceeded 
without injury. 

A locomotive that has seventy miles to travel 
each day, will perform it with less wear and tear, 
less friction, less injury, both to the locomotive and 
to the rail-road, by doing the work in seven hours 
than in six. 

What is true of a locomotive is true of other 
machines; and it is true also of animals. There is 
an amount of labour which each will perform in a 
year, or in any other given time, and that will be 
accomplished with less injury by a regular division 
of it, than in any other way. It may be true that 
a horse on a journey will be better for resting one 
day in seven; but if so, it is only because the work 
has been too hard on the other six; so of man, one 
or two, or three days in seven may be highly neces- 
sary to him, as a relief from excessive toil ; but it is 
from causes which in themselves are deviations from 
11 



126 INSTITUTION OP THE 

the laws of nature; and in attempting to apply a 
remedy, if we do not first understand the cause, we 
are liable to do evil instead of good. 

Admitting that the physical nature of man would 
be benefited by resting one day in seven, and I am 
not disposed to doubt it as a general truth, it does 
not follow that that day should be devoted to reli- 
gious exercises. A particular stress has been laid 
upon this part of the subject, and many efibrts used 
to enlist the hard working man in favour of resting 
one day in seven. 

Medical and other works are brought forward to 
sustain the position; but this, like most of their 
other testimony, proves too much. A day of reli- 
gious exercise, is not necessarily a day of rest. A 
practising physician of Philadelphia county, of great 
experience, whose life has been marked by kind- 
ness and consideration to the labouring classes of 
society, has remarked to the author of these pages 
upon this point, that great benefit would be likely 
to result from giving to steamboats, rail-roads, and 
other conveyances, increased facilities on the first 
day of the week, that the labouring classes, who 
were confined on other days, might have the en- 
joyment and advantage of riding into the country 
on that day. 

In the concern which Sabbatarians profess for the 
labouring man, would this suit them? Wouldahey 



SABBATH DAY. 127 

encourage them to leave the confinement of the 
towns and cities, and ride out into the country? 
Would they wish them to have the pleasure of 
visiting their friends, and walking in the fields to 
enjoy rural scenery ? These things for their phy- 
sical enjoyment would seem to be most natural and 
proper. There w^ere two instances in which the 
Sabbatarians had all power in their own hands, in 
both of which they abused it; they made the most 
severe laws against every species of rational enjoy- 
ment which a labouring man could desire, and which 
would be most in accordance with his physical na- 
ture. It is evident that the same thing would happen 
now, for they seem as if they would admit of going 
no where but to church. 

I was present, within the last few months, at what 
was called a religious meeting. I remained for hours 
a silent observer of the scene before me; one of the 
members of the convention was himself the chief 
speaker in the place; and I never witnessed, in 
the usual labour of men, work so hard, or excite- 
ment so violent, as I saw in a number of cases 
that were that day exhibited. If there is any sin- 
cerity in the position that has been taken on this 
subject by Sabbatarians, these meetings should be at 
once stopped. But there is not a word said on this 
subject; nay, the chief actors in them go to Sabbath 
conventions, and declare the necessity of a day of 



128 INSTITUTION OP THE 

rest to the physical frame of man. They build up 
with one hand and pull down with the other, and 
think they are doing God service thereby. The 
clergy themselves appear to be the greatest offenders 
in this respect. I do not perceive the difference be- 
tween making merchandise of the labour of a man's 
head, or of his hands. I do not say that either is 
wrong, but the principle is the same. Clergy- 
men, who work on the first day, take the liberty of 
judging, whether they will rest on any other day or 
not. Many of them probably work every day in 
the week, but they deny that right to others which 
they take for themselves. 

In this country almost every man is a working 
man. The judge who sits on the bench, and the 
merchant who writes in his office, may work as 
hard, nay, much harder, than he w^ho carries a 
mattock and labours on the highway. 

The one class would be most benefited by a day 
of rest, the other by a day of activity; and so far 
as our physical nature is concerned, if our judges 
and legislators, and all who lead sedentary lives, 
could be induced to ride out on the first day of the 
week, and take active exercise, society would be 
benefited thereby. 

These are obvious truths, that can be understood 
by all. Yet it is proposed to bring the judge and 
the legislator from one sedentary employment to 



SABBATH DAY. 129 

another; from the court and the legislative hall to 
the church; if that, as is sometimes the case, is a 
place of quietness and rest, still further to violate 
the laws of nature. 

If the views upon this subject, taken by the 
Sabbatarians, are correct, it is one of the strongest 
reasons that can be given, for the extension of a 
perfect liberty of conscience. The idle man, if 
he could be induced to do so, should go to work, 
the sedentary man should ride out and take open 
air in the country, and severe religious exercises 
should be put a stop to, because nature requires 
that one day in seven should be held purely as a 
day of rest and refreshment for the preservation of 
our physical frames. 

No rule of conduct would be of universal ap- 
plication. It is a subject of deep regret that- 
there should be licentiousness on any day; but 
the reformation, which is so desirable, is, in my 
apprehension, least of all to be expected from the 
plans of the modern Sabbatarians. Even if they 
promised great good, there is one all suflBcient rea- 
son against them, that they are not founded in 
truth. Is there no lesson to be learned from the 
continued activity of the bird and the beast on the 
first day of the week ? Do w^e see all the opera- 
tions of nature going on unceasingly, and yet sup- 
pose there is an exception in regard to man? 
11^ 



130 INSTITUTION OF THE 

that the immutable laws of nature are changed as 
respects him; that he alone has been created with 
an inability to work seven days in the week? Alas 
for such narrow minded views! 

In Scotland first, in this country, and in Eng- 
land next, where the Puritan principles have pre- 
vailed, tiie first day of the week has been inva- 
riably perverted, from a day of joy and rejoicing, 
to one of gloom and superstition. It is in these 
countries, notwithstanding the great professions of 
concern for the physical nature of man, that nature 
has been most of all violated, by the denial of liberty 
of conscience to use the day of rest as would most 
promote health and happiness. 

The address of the National Sabbath Convention 

contains these words: "A period of rest, after six 

.days continued toil, is indispensable to the labourer; 

without this gracious interval his strength and 

vigour prematurely decay. 

"Nor is this interval of repose, as a law of our 
physical nature, less necessary to intellectual occu- 
pations. The mind must be statedly unladen of its 
cares, as the body of its burdens, or a similar pe- 
nalty must be endured." 

It has been already mentioned, that men in some 
employments, require to be relieved every eight 
hours; or to give it another division of time, to have 



SABBATH DAY. 131 

three Sabbaths of rest in a week. I have known 
many others, hard working men, when the labour 
was less severe, whose occupation required that 
they should attend to their respective duties twelve 
hours in the twenty-four, every day in the year. 
There was no decay of health and vigour, no ex- 
hausted energies, no prostration of body or of 
spirit, which this address pretends to say is the 
inevitable consequence of not keeping the Sabbath 
day. Not one single instance of the kind has ever 
come under my observation, during a period of 
many years. In regard to intellectual occupations 
on that day, which it is stated will result in 
"less clearness of perception, power of description, 
and soundness of judgment,^^ I may mention, that 
some of the best works that have ever been written 
in this country, works which have received great 
commendation in foreign lands for their literary 
and scientific character, have been composed almost 
exclusively on Sundays, in the leisure thence afford- 
ed from constant employment of other days in the 
week. The views which I have given on this sub- 
ject are believed to be the only true ones; and 
the sentiments of the Sabbatarians, differing from 
these as they do materially, are certainly incorrect 
both in principle and in practice. 

Descent of property. 

The national address to the people of the United 



132 INSTITUTION OF THE 

States uses this language: *^ However pure and 
healthful the fountain^ if poison be cast into it, it 
sends forth only streams of death; and so will 
desecrated and polluted Sabbaths work our more 
speedy and dreadful ruin/^ 

In the proceedings of the Harrisburg Conven- 
tion we find the following sentence: "Property 
earned or increased by Sabbath desecration^ reaches 
a second generation, accompanied by the impious 
parental lesson, that the claims of duty and human 
happiness may yield to the clamours of interest 
and convenience. Hence it is no wonder that such 
inheritances are soon squandered, so that the profli- 
gate and beggared son trudges in rags, where a 
Sabbath-breaking father rode in his chariot/' I 
ask myself how is it possible that deliberate assem- 
blies sanction such language. Is it true, that the laws 
of nature are inviolate to those who desecrate the 
Sabbath, as well as to those who do not? If it is so, 
the conclusions to be drawn from these paragraphs 
are false, and it is not too much to say, that the en- 
lightened men of those congregations knew that 
they were soi 

Where are the nobility of England, the acknow- 
ledged desecrators of the Sabbath day, with their 
property preserved to their families from one gene- 
ration to another for a thousand years? 

It may be said that their estates have been pro- 



SABBATH DAY. 133 

tected by particular laws, but what are human laws 
to that power that burns a barn or sinks a steam- 
boat, as a judgment upon Sabbath-breakers? Where 
is the Quaker property? instead of going down 
with this curse attached to it, it is preserved in a 
remarkable degree, from one generation to another. 

But admitting that the parents had done wrong in 
working on the first day of the week, which I 
totally deny, who has delegated authority to these 
conventions to pass judgment upon their children, 
and to make them answerable for sins which they 
never committed. 

Such sentiments, no matter how respectable the 
source whence they come, are degrading to human 
nature, and unworthy of enlightened assemblies. 

The clergy. 

The influence of the clergy is made so prominent 
a subject in Sabbath conventions, that it requires 
some notice. Addresses are reported and sustained, 
by which it might appear that the keys of both 
heaven and earth are given into their charge. 

I touch upon the subject with regret, because I 
am liable to be misunderstood. There are many 
individuals among them, humble minded and de- 
voted to the cause of truth, whose feelings I would 
not willingly wound; I would rather contribute to 
build them up than pull them down; but the sys- 
tem of paying men for preaching and praying, is 



134 INSTITUTION OF THE 

liable to great abuse. It is hardly possible in the 
nature of man, that a class of society should be 
receiving pay for their services, and not be influ- 
enced thereby. In the nature of things they will 
avoid such doctrines as are repugnant to those who 
give them bread. 

Lord Brougham, in his speech on the Irish elec- 
tive franchise bill, says, "Perjury ought certainly 
to be discountenanced, but we are not the persons 
to disfranchise for that offence, or we may disfran- 
chise ourselves.'^ # # # "How will the reve- 
rend bishops of the other house be able to express 
their due abhorrence of such a crime, who solemnly 
declare in the presence of their God, that when 
they are called upon to accept a living, perhaps of 
£4000 a year, at that very instant, they are moved 
by the Holy Ghost to accept the office and adminis- 
tration thereof, and for no other reason whatever/^* 

The first day of the week is the great har- 
vest day of the clergy; hence so little reliance 
is to be placed upon any thing they say upon the 
subject. Where a deep pecuniary interest is at 
stake, evidence from the party concerned is not 
received in any court in the United States. 

The good and excellent men among them, do not 
change the effects of the system. In the southern 

* Morning Chronicle, April 27, 1825. 



SABBATH DAY. 135 

states, the established clergy uphold and justify 
slavery; in the north they condemn it. They are 
found in armies directly opposed to each other, 
asking blessings on each, and the inference is ob- 
vious, that many of them would take either side of 
the Sabbath question, as their interest might dictate. 
A large number of young men are annually to be 
provided for, and it is a natural consequence, that 
as the Sabbath supports them, they will support the 
Sabbath. 

The clergy, from the time of the dark ages, 
(when churches and monasteries contained the 
learning of the world,) have had an influence to 
which they were never entitled. In the present 
day, as they cannot control literature, they have 
been found willing to pervert it, to serve their own 
purposes, and to uphold their power.* Hence in an 
inquiry for truth, great caution is to be observed in 
receiving statements emanating from them. This 
observation applies with peculiar force to their ac- 
counts of the morality and religion of Pagan na- 
tions. Their prejudices are so deep, and their 
interests so immediate, that it is scarcely possible 
their statements should be correct. 

A little inquiry will convince us, that whether 

* See speech of John Hare Powell in the senate of Pennsyl- 
vania. Also ''Dangers from Presbyterianism," p. 14. Also 
New York Observer, Saturday, November, 1844. 



136 INSTITUTION OF THE 

in religion or literature, the clergy have always 
been behind the age; from them have emanated all 
the persecutions which have disgraced the name of 
religion ; to them we may trace the opposition 
which has so often obscured for a time the light of 
science; and in many instances consigned its dis- 
ciples — the benefactors of mankind — to imprison- 
ment and a shameful death. 

The spirit which persecuted Galileo, is not ex- 
tinct in the present day; it has descended with the 
mantle of the priesthood, and its influence is felt in 
the opposition of the clergy to all attempts to en- 
large the limits of human knowledge. 

This alone is sufficient evidence that the religion 
of the clergy is not true religion- — the latter is, in 
its nature, expansive and comprehensive. Ema- 
nating from perfect wisdom, it harmonizes with all 
that is true — every discovery in science affords ad- 
ditional proof of its doctrines. Religion has, in 
truth, all to hope, and the clergy have all to fear, 
from the expansion of knowledge. The preten- 
sions of the one are founded in error and prejudice, 
while the other is based upon immutable and ever- 
lasting truth. 

There is doubtless much learning among the 
clergy, but generally it is unfruitful and barren of 
any good result — it is oftener employed to gild 
ancient error, than to assist the candid enquirer.* 



SABBATH DAY. 137 

Erasmus said, in his day "it was a matter of wit 
to be a Christian; that faith was rather in their 
papers than in their souls; that there were almost 
as many creeds as professors.^' What was true 
then, is true now. The strength of a man's under- 
standing, the power of his voice and his eloquence, 
are made the proofs of his Christianity. 

Persons who make books their study, and hope 
to obtain religion from them, are liable above all 
others to be led astray. We may learn from them 
the dogmas of different sects, and all the compli- 
cated affairs of church history; they are valuable, 
as containing the opinions of other men, and the 
records of former generations; but out of their pro- 
per place they may come to be curses rather than 
blessings; and this without regard to the excellence 
of the books themselves. The latent springs of 
human action each man has within him, whether 
they be good or bad. The fragrance of the rose is 
of no value to such as have not the power of smell: 
man must first have truth within him, to know 
what truth is: people who pretend to derive wis- 
dom from books, must necessarily be behind the 
age; and without better dependence than books for 
religion, we can neither understand nor appreciate 
it. An implicit reliance on written religion de- 
based the Puritans, and the same evil influence is 
felt in the present day. 
12 



1S8 INSTITUTION OF THE 

" The heart 
May give an useful lesson to the head, 
And learning wiser grow without his books. 
Knowledge and wisdom, far from being one, 
Have ofttimes no connection. Knowledge dwells 
In heads replete with thoughts of other menj 
Wisdom in minds attentive to their own. 
****** 

Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much; 
Wisdom is humble that he knows no more." 

Cowper's Task. 

Connected with the subject of the clergy, is the 
continued recommendation of the Sabbatarians to 
attend the churches. The different reports which 
I have read, bear to my mind conclusive internal 
evidence that they are written by clergymen. They 
arrogate to the clergy powers which they never 
had, and assume for the ministry an influence which 
it does not possess. This is the natural effect of 
making a trade of preaching. 

The national address speaks of the "privileges of 
an attendance on the instructions of an intelligent 
Christian ministry.^^ I have no wish to destroy 
the churches; they harmonize, in a degree, with 
the state of society; but such a ministry, I con- 
ceive, is not to be found among the Sabbatarians. 
Calvinism, Episcopacy, Romanism, Puseyism, Unity 
and Trinity, sprinkling and baptizing, breaking the 
Sabbath, dogmas and rituals, often form the prdmi- 



SABBATH DAY. 139 

nent subjects of their discourses. If a person of 
sound intelligence was to hear some of these ser- 
mons, he might ask whether the principle of Chris- 
tianity made any part of the doctrine of the preacher. 
Churches are only objectionable on account of the 
doctrines that are promulgated in them. Making 
the distinction between days, leads to the greater 
error arising from the distinction between what 
they call secular and religious things. They have 
one God for Sunday, and another for the other six 
days. If it was not that man returns day by day 
to his own bosom for the knowledge of right and 
wrong, sermons of this character would destroy 
by degrees every vestige of religion there is in the 
world. The very nature of their doctrines is often 
at variance with the great principles of human na- 
ture. 

Neal, himself a clergyman, in his History of the 
Puritans, gives the following account of their minis- 
try in the early days of the Sabbath excitement. 
"The Puritan (or parliament) clergy, were zealous 
Calvinists; and having been prohibited for some 
years from preaching against the Arminians, they 
now pointed all their artillery against them, insist- 
ing upon little else in their sermons but the doc- 
trines of predestination^ justification by faith 
alonCj salvation by free grace^ and the inability 
of man to do that which is good. The duties of 



140 INSTITUTION OF THE 

the second table were too much neglected; from a 
strong aversion to Arminianism, these divines un- 
happily made way for Antinomianism^ verging 
from one extreme to another, till at length some of 
the weaker sort were lost in the wild mazes of en- 
thusiastic dreams and visions; and others, from false 
principles, pretended to justify the hidden works of 
dishonesty.^^ 

It may be supposed that the Sabbatarian ministry 
of the present day is better than this. A talented 
and distinguished Protestant clergyman of Phila- 
delphia, gives the following account of it in the 
present year: "Congregations, instead of being 
taught from the pulpit to adorn their profession by 
all the lovely graces of the gospel, by kind and 
affectionate bearing in the world, by earnest and 
ever active endeavours to secure for themselves and 
others the blessings of peace, were annoyed with 
inflammatory harangues upon the ^ great schism,' 
and upon the ^abominations of the Roman church/ 
The Pope, and the Pope, and the Pope, was the 
beginning and end of sermons in certain churches; 
and women and children were frightened with the 
details of him at Rome/^* 

This ministry, which is so much recommended, 
breathes habitually intolerance and sectarianism ; 

* ''Dangers from Presbyterianism," p. 21. 



SABBATH DAY. 141 

it prays twice and thrice a day at Sabbath conven- 
tions; but it has been proved to have created riots 
and discord, and is in truth subversive of the 
morals of society. 

Next^ as to the arguments which are adduced 
in favour of closing canals, because courts and 
the public offices are closed on the first day of the 
week. 

At the early period of the Christian reli- 
gion, when that faith prevailed, all the secular 
power was in the hands of the Romans. Constan- 
tine, in the edict already referred to, and who first 
united church and state, interdicted the opening of 
courts on Sunday, which was afterwards confirmed 
by Theodosius, Valentinian and x\rcadius, who pub- 
lished a law prohibiting arbitrations on holy days. 
In this prohibition, Sundays, their birth-days, and 
festival days, were all placed on the same foot- 
ing. These edicts were still further enforced by 
Leo, 466, who gives as a reason, "that adversaries 
might meet together on that day without fear.'' 
The same law directed that the spectacle of wild 
beasts, the theatre, and other places of diversion, 
should be closed; and a distinction was made, for 
the first time, between birth-days and Sunday.* 

Such were the imperial laws relative to closing 

♦ See CorpUvS Juris Civilis, where these laws are extant. Ar- 
ticle Ferii. Also Howell's Ecclesiastical History, folio, vol. III. 
12* 



142 INSTITUTION OF THE 

courts on the first day of the week. There were, 
no doubt, many special usages, in difierent coun- 
tries, upon the subject; and they seem to have been 
regulated by the caprices of those who held the 
power. In the reign of Alfred, bishops were the 
judges, and several parts of the New Testament were 
incorporated into the Saxon laws.* The closing 
of the courts has become a law by long usage, 
enforcing particular statutes upon the subject, and 
the practice is universally assented to and approved. 
It has a basis in our physical nature, which would 
in itself be imperative. I apprehend there is no 
employment so severe for a conscientious magis- 
trate, as setting as a judge in our supreme courts, 
where there is no appeal. The stretch of thought 
and research which is required in cases often ex- 
tremely intricate; the mists that are thrown around 
by advocates, whose business it is to tell their own 
side of the story; the elaborate opinions that are 
often to be written out, make it one of the most 
onerous employments that is to be found. Instead 
of curtailing the relaxation of the judges, two days 
of rest in each week had better be appointed for 
them. 

If there is no other reason why the courts should 
be closed, the usages of our forefathers, many cen- 

* See Hume's Hist. Eng. reign of Alfred; also, Jefferson's 
Letter to Castier. 



SABBATH DAY. 143 

turies ago, should not be deemed authority for us, 
under circumstances entirely different. The first 
frame of laws in this province, made by William 
Penn, permitted all the civil affairs of government 
to be transacted on the first day of the week, "in 
cases of emergency;'^ and the legislature, and civil 
officers of this state, are at liberty to transact busi- 
ness on that day whenever it is required. 

Jis respects the policy of closing canals and 
rail-roads on the first day of the week. 

It seems to me that when statements are made, 
the whole truth should be told. If facts material 
to true judgment are left out, such statements are 
essentially false. 

A statement was furnished to the Harrisburg 
Convention, and reiterated in Baltimore by a cler- 
gyman, and promulgated by both conventions, ex- 
hibiting the profit and loss on one section of the 
rail-roads of Pennsylvania. It pretends to show 
great loss in running the cars on the Allegheny 
Portage Rail-road on Sunday. If profit is the ob- 
ject, that rail-road may be made as profitable on 
that day as on any other, by taking off all restric- 
tions, and using it as it is used on other days. Thus 
the loss is by observing the Sabbath, and not by 
desecrating it. But admitting that this is not done, 
and certainly no one proposes it, the statement is 
essentially false, because it does not tell the whole 



144 INSTITUTION OF THE 

truth; it argues as if the passengers came only from 
one extreme of the road to the other. They come 
from distant parts of the country, from Louisiana, 
Alabama, &c. in great numbers; they encounter all 
the uncertainties of the western waters; therefore 
it is not possible, under any circumstances, for them 
to make their journey in six days; and, indepen- 
dently of any considerations of profit, the public have 
a right to expect the whole communication to be 
kept open. It is a road more used by women and 
children than any other thoroughfare in this state. 
These are to be stopped twenty-four hours, often to 
great inconvenience and suffering- — their boarding 
is to be paid by some one — to promote a sectarian 
object, that is opposed to the precepts of the New 
Testament. 

A simple statement of the facts of the case would 
have been, that this road was part of a great line of 
communication, in which, for the transport of pas- 
sengers alone, seven or eight boats were constantly 
engaged, twenty to thirty horses, and fifty to a hun- 
dred men; that stopping one link, broke the whole 
chain of communication, and would inevitably be 
attended with heavy loss. They might have added, 
that this road could be in no case a profitable con- 
cern by itself, and never would have been made 
but to sustain this connection. This would have 



SABBATH DAY. 145 

been the simple truth, but that has been sacrificed 
for a sectarian object. 

If passing on the canals were prohibited, boat- 
men would probably be often found collected where 
the means of passing an idle day would be most 
agreeable to them. There could hardly be selected 
a measure of more demoralizing tendency. In a 
physical point of view, the rest is not necessary to 
the canal men; an easier work in general could 
hardly be selected. While the boats are loading 
and unloading the men work; at that time the 
horses are at rest. Besides this, they are stopped 
often by high water, they are stopped by low water; 
almost every month there are breaks somewhere on 
the canal, that detain them to a greater or less ex- 
tent — often for days, sometimes for weeks together. 
They are detained by the necessary repairs of the 
canals — they are detained for repairing their boats 
— they are stopped four months in the year by frost, 
and yet, with all these embarrassments, these Sab- 
bath sectarians want to take from the boatmen one 
seventh part of the residue of their time. It seems 
to me like a contest of the strong and the powerful 
against those who are not able to vindicate their 
own cause. 

The boatmen have neither time nor money to 
devote to boatmen's conventions, or they might 
meet together with great propriety, and form asso- 



146 INSTITUTION OF THE 

ciations to endeavour to reform and soften the 
hearts of sectarians, who are so prone to condemn 
those who differ from them. They may be con- 
sidered, on the broad scale, to be better men than 
sectarians; and their statements would be more to 
be relied upon than the publications of the Sabbath 
conventions. If there are boatmen who are de- 
sirous of stopping their boats on the Sunday, no 
one objects — no voice is raised against it. Why 
should not perfect liberty of conscience be extended 
to all? Those who travel on that day have the ex- 
ample of Jesus Christ and the doctrines of the New 
Testament in their favour; but I have never heard 
an objection to persons staying at home on that day, 
if they preferred not to travel. 

Turnpike roads are established by the same power 
and for the same purpose as canals; but society 
would never suffer them to be subjected to sectarian 
influence — there is this difference, the turnpikes are 
used by thousands of individuals, while only a few 
boatmen pass on the canals, who are not so well 
able to tell their own story and vindicate their 
cause. 

The Harrisburg Convention says: "Of fifty lock- 
tenders on the Pennsylvania canal, between Co- 
lumbia and the Allegheny mountains, forty-four do 
not open their locks to the freight boats.'^ The 
Report omits to state, that if the keepers are not' in 



SABBATH DAY. 



147 



attendance, the boatmen open the locks themselves. 
It seems to be purposely framed so as to admit of 
an inference which is not correct, and is in fact a 
false statement made under colour of the truth. 

It is intimated that this has been effected by the 
Sabbath missionaries. Can it be possible there is 
a class of men among us, who ask lock-keepers to 
violate their contracts, and induce them to set at 
nought the laws of the commonwealth, which ex- 
pressly authorize travelling on Sunday, and then 
boast of such achievements as a triumph? 

The convention also refers, with apparent exulta- 
tion, to the fact, that the Philadelphia and Reading 
rail-road is to be stopped on the first day of the 
week. That road was made for the transportation 
of coal, and as the success of the road is a question 
of speed, the company would probably be the gainer 
by stopping every passenger car. 

The present stoppage is the result of the indi- 
vidual views of the postmaster-general. He in- 
formed the directors it was not his wish that the 
mail should be carried on Sunday, and the pas- 
senger train not being profitable without it, it has 
been discontinued on that day. It is understood 
that the board of directors had no objection to the 
Sunday cars. Here is an officer of the government 
violating the trust the country has reposed in him, 
and acting in direct opposition to the declared will 



148 INSTITUTION OF THE 

of the congress of the United States, (as manifested 
in the Sunday mail report,) to accomplish a sectarian 
object, which I repeat is adverse to the principles 
of the Christian religion. 

It is not on this route alone that this usurpation 
of power has taken place; in other places, where 
the stage travels regularly on that day, they are not 
allowed to take in the mail bags. It has been at- 
tended with loss and inconvenience, and has given 
general dissatisfaction. No matter who is in power, 
or who is not, every true hearted man ought to ob- 
ject to such things. 

There are other statements made by these con- 
ventions, which it is not needful strictly to examine; 
they allude to having documents to sustain their 
positions. My impression is, that these have been 
prepared by men of so much prejudice, that they 
are not entitled to the smallest credit. 

The national address says, with some exultation, 
"It is not he who fears God, and keeps his Sabbath, 
that robs his neighbour, or murders him.'^ * * * 
Every body knows that. "Nor is his place among 
the debased of his species in any respect, or any- 
where. * * * * He will understand and value 
his political rights, and respect the rights of others. 
* * * * * * The world has never witnessed the 
spectacle of an universal obedience to the Sabbath 



SABBATH DAY. 149 

in any country, and its full power to bless a nation 
is yet unrevealed/^ 

Were those who issued this address so blind, or 
so ignorant, or so prejudiced, as not to know that 
every statement herein is untrue. The Sabbata- 
rians at one time wielded the power of the British 
parliament; they enforced the observance of the 
day by every law that ingenuity could devise; they 
came to this country with both the civil and eccle- 
siastical power in their hands. Every individual 
in the colony was of the class of Sabbatarians. Is 
there no truth in the histories that have been al- 
luded to? Were the Quakers and the witches not 
hung? Who was it exercised such dreadful cruel- 
ties upon the defenceless aborigines of the country? 
Who was it made such despotic laws against the 
Roman Catholics, that it was death for a Catholic 
priest to remain in their territories ? If history is 
true, the answer to all these questions will be, that 
it was the Sabbatarians. Who had such bitter quar- 
rels and denunciations among themselves, that when 
they had only been settled a few years in the coun- 
try. Vane, one of the most pious among these Puri- 
tans, left the country in disgust? In the contest, 
Cotton, and Winthrop, and Hutchinson, were promi- 
nent actors. The answer still is, it was the Sabba- 
tarians. And it is the Sabbatarians that at the 
13 



150 INSTITUTION OP THE 

present day are issuing denunciations against some 
of the most respectable men in the country. 

In one of the leading addresses of the conven- 
tion, it is said, ^^no one can rebel against the Sab- 
bath as a religious institution, without the most 
heaven-daring sin;" and another work, speaking of 
the Sabbath-breakers, says, ^^judgment in due time 
lingereth not, and damnation slumbereth not."* 
Such sentiments, in my opinion, can only be sus- 
tained by falsehood. In every aspect they are 
equally untrue. I have observed the management 
of extensive operations, where large numbers of 
people were employed; I have worked on the first 
day of the week whenever it has suited me to do 
so; I have employed others to do the same; I have 
travelled and visited on that day; I have done 
everything that I would do on any other day of the 
week. I have seen, times without number, chil- 
dren enjoying the innocent amusements of their 
kites and their marbles, and I have never seen the 
slightest loss or harm resulting from it, in any way 
whatever. So far as I have acted myself, I have 
done it with great peace and tranquillity of mind; 
nay, to use a Scripture expression, if I had observed 
one day as more holy than the rest, the stones in 
the street would have cried out against me. I shall 

* Boston Permanent Documents. 



SABBATH DAY. 151 

show hereafter, that the laws sustain me in such a 
course. 

I here close my remarks upon Sabbath conven- 
tions: what I have said, has been in no unkind 
spirit: some among the members are my personal 
friends, and no one can deny, that the assemblies in 
question, have contained much individual virtue, 
respectability and intelligence. Against their pro- 
ceedings, however, I have felt called upon to pro- 
test, as a Christian and as a citizen. The fictions 
which they have brought forward, are so monstrous, 
as to disgust any candid enquirer after truth; the 
end which they propose to gain, is subversive alike 
of religion and good government; they would de- 
stroy liberty of conscience, to gain which, the 
world has seen so much suffering; they would re- 
tard the progress of science and the arts, which can 
never flourish, when the mind is enslaved; they 
would establish a religion of rites and ceremonies, 
in place of the pure and simple doctrines of the 
Christian faith ; they would recall, in ejQTect, the 
formal spirit of Paganism, to preside at the altars 
of a spiritual church; they would debase religion 
to glorify themselves: to gain such ends, they 
now invoke the aid of public opinion and the power 
of the civil government; should they succeed, they 
would establish a persecution, as oppressive in its 
nature, as any that deforms the pages of history. 



152 INSTITUTION OF THE 

There is a general impression that the govern- 
ments of these states are civil compacts, having 
nothing to do with ecclesiastical affairs. It is so of 
the United States, but not of the individual states; 
they all interfere more or less with these things, 
and incorporate religious creeds into what ought to 
be civil codes only. They protect all; but there are 
disabilities of one kind or other; in some, it ex- 
tends to Jews, in others to Roman Catholics, some- 
times to both. In more than one state the clergy 
are not eligible to seats in the legislature. In every 
case these are defects; there is no reason that the 
clergy should be condemned beforehand as unfit 
for such offices; and the more they are considered 
a distinct class of society, the greater is the priest- 
craft. 

The constitution of Pennsylvania expressly says, 
" That all men have a natural and indefeasible right 
to worship Almighty God according to the dictates 
of their own consciences; that no man can of right be 
compelled to attend, erect, or support any place of 
worship, or to maintain any ministry against his 
consent; that no human authority can, in any case 
whatever, control or interfere with the rights of 
conscience.'' 

This is plain and express, and it is meant to cover 
the v^^hole ground, giving liberty of conscience to 
all; leaving it, as a matter of course, to the courts 



SABBATH DAY. 153 

to interfere, under the great principles of the com- 
mon law, whenever, under the pretence of liberty 
of conscience, the rights of others are invaded. 

This supreme law of the state of Pennsylvania, 
absolutely nullifies and does away every statute 
that interferes with the right of conscience. The 
courts have no power to interfere to judge of con- 
science; one man may choose to eat pork, and an- 
other not; one to travel and another to remain at 
home; one to work and another to be idle. So 
long as none abridge the civil rights of their fellow 
men, the courts have no power over them. This I 
believe is not only the letter, but the spirit of the 
constitution of this state. It is almost verbatim of 
the rights guaranteed by Penn, heretofore alluded 
to. And yet liberty of conscience has been abridged 
by several laws for the observance of the first day 
of the week. One innovation has begotten another, 
and instead of a purely civil code, protecting all 
equally, and leaving ecclesiastical afiairs in the 
hands of sects and individuals, we have established, 
by our enactments, a partial union of church and 
state. 

The first law of this nature was passed in 1705. 
It is called "an act to restrain people from labour 
on the first day of the week.^^ It left open all 
kind of diversions, as had been done before by the 
laws of England. On the same day, another act 
12* 



154 INSTITUTION OF THE 

was passed, called "a law concerning liberty of 
conscience/^ This latter law seems undoubtedly 
to have been meant to protect all conscientious per- 
sons who chose to work on that day. It says that 
^^no person now, nor at any time hereafter, dwell- 
ing or residing within this province, who shall pro- 
fess faith in God the Father and in Jesus Christ, 
&c., shall in any case be molested or prejudiced for 
his or her conscientious persuasion — but shall freely 
and fully enjoy his or her Christian liberty in all 
respects, without molestation or interruption.''* 

This view is sustained by the knowledge that 
both of these laws were supported by Quaker in- 
fluence; it is well known, that that sect had a 
decided objection to a superstitious regard of the 
day. Many of them took in their harvest and 
worked in their fields as it suited them. It was, in 
fact, but renewing the principles which had been 
proclaimed by Penn, heretofore referred to, and 
these form the basis of that part of the constitution 
of the state which I have copied. 

After such repeated declarations, it ought to be 
considered a settled law of the land, that conscien- 
tious men are at liberty to work on the first day of 
the week, if they choose to do so. I think there 
can be no doubt that such is the law of this state, 

* See folio laws, 1714, p. 32. 



SABBATH DAY. 155 

and that it would be so interpreted by enlightened 
and disinterested men. What would be the result, 
in a court with prejudiced feelings, it is impossible 
to say. The case seems never to have been brought 
fairly into view. There is one report of a Jew, 
who was complained of for having worked on Sun- 
day; but it seems as if he had pleaded his religious 
persuasion, rather than individual, conscientious feel- 
ings, and the court decided against him. The law 
in question did not apply to him, because a Jew is 
not supposed to have faith in Jesus Christ; but the 
constitution is broad enough to cover the case, if it 
had been purely one of conscientious feeling. If it 
w^as such, of which I know nothing, the court 
ought to have sustained him; otherwise it would 
be an usurpation of legislative power by the court. 
The introduction of religion into the common law, 
was an usurpation of this kind, and is said to have 
been founded upon the "base falsehoods'^ of the 
law judges in England.* This has been perpetu- 
ated in this country, and will continue to be the 
case, so long as people want confidence in the power 
of truth.t 

* See Jefferson's letter to Major Cartwright. Jefferson's Cor- 
respondence, vol. IV. p. 393. 

t The president of the college at Columbia, South Carolina, 
in a letter to a member of congress, says, ''this usurpation has 
been so completely put down by Jefferson, that it never can be 



156 INSTITUTION OF THE 

There could hardly be a greater stigma cast upon 
the Christian religion, than the idea that it is not 
able to sustain itself without the power of the 
sword. 

A very curious trial occurred a few years since 
in Pennsylvania. A man came before the court 
with his hat on. The Quakers, as a class, objected 
to the formal recognition of respect, where they 
felt none; and, preferring to show it by their con- 
duct rather than by unmeaning forms, they steadily 
refused to pull off their hats in reverence to any 
court or body of men. This was so well settled, 
that if the man had been a Quaker, there would 
have been no question upon the subject; he was 
not a Quaker, but still he chose to keep his hat on, 
and the court ordered it to be taken off. For this 
offence, the judge was impeached before the senate 
of the state, the impeachment was sustained, and 
he lost his office for this, and for this alone. The 
man pleaded that he had done no civil injury to 
any one — that the constitution gave him a right to 



repeated except for purposes of fraud." And he asks, in refer- 
ence to the case, (" Smith and Sparrow, 4 Bingh, 84. 88,") *' did 
Judge Story never read the Year Book cited by Mr. Jefferson, 
which shows the barefaced, wilful ignorance of the English 
bench 1 The Judge either has read Prisot's opinion, or he has 
not. If not, he is grossly ignorant; if he has, he has asserted 
what he knows is not law." 



SABBATH DAY. 157 

take his hat off or keep it on — and the high court 
of appeals sustained him in it. 

This may appear as a very small affair, but the 
senate was right. Courts have no right to usurp 
legislative powers, and if truth prevails, conscien- 
tious men will be sustained in doing any work on 
the first day that their feelings may render proper. 

So stood the laws of Pennsylvania relative to the 
first day, until the year 1794, when another law 
was passed, renewing the interdiction of labour, but 
not touching the provisions relative to the right of 
conscience; it allowed travelling, and was almost a 
copy of the previous law, except that it prohibited 
diversions, and it may be considered in itself a 
proof, that the legislature on that subject, had be- 
come more ceremonial and superstitious. 

With a settled conscientious persuasion, that 
every day should be alike holy, I have performed 
any work which suited me on the first day of the 
week, and I have considered that the laws of Penn- 
sylvania protected me, and would protect others in 
so doing. 

At almost every session of our legislature, peti- 
tions are presented for further enactments relative 
to the first day of the week; they are referred to 
committees, and uniformly rejected. Still, while 
men^s minds are prejudiced, there is no certain 
security for liberty of conscience. The constitu- 



158 INSTITUTION OF THE 

tion may remain as it is; but laws are but cobwebs 
to a sectarian community. 

Courts, that are to explain them, partake of the 
influence, and the people sustain them in it. At 
present, the most certain reliance for the preserva- 
tion of liberty of conscience in this country, is in 
the antagonist principles of the different sects. It 
might seem to be a sad thing that caused religious 
sects to quarrel as they do, but thence arises safety 
to honest and enlightened men. Let them combine 
upon the subject of Sunday police, or upon any 
other point whatever, and the liberties of the coun- 
try are in danger. 

Those who are disposed to multiply penal enact- 
ments, seem not to understand their nature. Se- 
verities against doctrines, have so much augmented 
the evil, that persecutions have been called the seed 
of the church. And it is probable that penal laws 
have often increased rather than lessened crime. 
In the reign of Henry VIII., there were hanged 
in England seventy-two thousand thieves and 
rogues, besides other malefactors, being about two 
thousand a year.^ Executions have been gradually 
decreasing, until they have become of rare occur- 
rence. Laws have been softened, and the morals 
of the people have improved; it is probable that 

* See Hume's History of England, vol. V. note, (MM.) p;533. 



SABBATH DAY. 159 

this improvement is to be ascribed in no incon- 
siderable degree, to the public being rendered less 
familiar with crime, through the amenity of the 
civil code. 

Jefferson, in his Notes on Virginia, makes it a 
question, whether no law at all, or too much law, is 
the greater evil. He pronounces the latter to be 
the case; he founds his opinion on the Indian na- 
tions on one side, (amongst whom, he says, govern- 
ed as they are by the moral sense of right and 
wrong, crimes are of^very rare occurrence,) and 
the civilized nations of Europe on the other.* 

Ordinances are of no avail unless supported by 
public opinion. The laws of Pennsylvania, so far 
as respects the abstaining from labour on the first 
day of the week, are effectual. Society universally 
assents to them; but of what avail are the provi- 
sions respecting tippling on Sunday. Constables 
are required to search public houses, and other au- 
thority is given to them, but it avails so little, that 
it is supposed there is double the amount of licen- 
tiousness on that as on any other day. And if we 
multiply the statutes upon this subject, it is more 
likely to increase than to decrease crime. 

Our canals and rail-roads are used by persons 
who believe they are enjoined to keep the seventh 

* Jeflferson's Notes, p. 138. 



160 INSTITUTION OF THE 

day of the week as a Sabbath, and by others who 
are conscientious in keeping every day as a day of 
holiness. These persons are all taxed to support 
them, and they can never be placed on a footing 
with other men, if their conscientious rights are 
not equally attended to. 

Our canals have been designed for public high- 
ways, under regulations necessary for their preser- 
vation, and the legislature has no more right to put 
any other restrictions upon them, than it has to in- 
terfere with our state or turnpike roads. Travel- 
ling on the first of the w^eek is expressly permitted 
by the laws of the state, and I am not aware of any 
difference in principle between travelling by water 
and by land. Sunday has been considered a lucky 
day for seamen to leave port, and raftsmen travel 
on the river by hundreds when the water suits 
them. I believe no idea was ever expressed that 
this was wrong. Why then should not the farmer 
take in his grain with equal propriety? The grain 
is ripe in the fields but a few days in the year. 
The raftsman who depends upon accidental freshets 
is equally limited as to time; they stand upon the 
same footing. The law makes a distinction, which 
has no foundation in reason or common sense. 
There are usually more days suitable for the rafts- 
man than for the husbandman to take in his grain. 

The edict of Constantine, and the old English 



SABBATH DAY. 161 

laws, heretofore referred to, allowed all kinds of 
work in the harvest field. 

If our government is, as is pretended, a civil 
compact, the propriety of any laws of this character 
may be questioned; they are, in fact, an incon- 
gruous mixture of church and state, warranted in 
some degree by old usages, but inconsistent with 
the nature of our institutions. They have one 
origin, a want of reliance on the power of truth. 
Having full and entire confidence in the influence 
of religion on the human mind — in its universality 
— in its sufficiency to sustain itself without the aid 
of the civil power, I should fear no evil from abol- 
ishing every law upon the subject, and leaving such 
things to the discipline of particular sects. 

The Sabbatarians would object to such a course, 
because they imagine that religion depends upon 
the observance of one day as the Sabbath. Not 
many years since, it was thought needful that 
religion should be supported by the power of the 
state. The opinion has prevailed still more gene- 
rally that an established clergy is necessary. Ex- 
perience has demonstrated that these ideas are un- 
founded, and that such institutions are not required. 

The toleration act in England, was only obtained 
after a desperate struggle with the power of the 
clergy; and yet that act was fraught with unnum- 
bered blessings, and enlarged, in every direction, the 
14 



162 INSTITUTION OF THE 

sphere of the human mind. At a later day, the 
corporation and test acts fell before the same liberal 
spirit, and in despite of the same opposition; in 
our own country, established church governments 
in Virginia and in New England, have been suc- 
cessively overthrown after every effort on the part 
of the clergy to sustain them. 

While we have to lament the continued existence 
of so much bigotry and intolerance, it is pleasing 
to record these examples of progress. The day is 
not, we may hope, far distant, when all men will 
acknowledge the insuflSciency of form and ceremony 
to illustrate a spiritual religion. 

Sabbath conventions will then assume their place 
in history with other sectarian movements, which 
have attempted to repress the spirit of enquiry, 
and which, after brief success, have become a 
mockery and a warning to succeeding generations. 

Enactments on this subject are but a species of 
sectarianism upon a broader scale, the evils of which 
have been shown in many ways in this country. 

A few years since, in the neighbourhood of Bos- 
ton, a Catholic seminary was burnt to the ground 
by a combination of zealous Protestants. The same 
thing has occurred in Philadelphia during the pre- 
sent season. Catholic seminaries have been de- 
stroyed, and the community was so corrupted by 
sectarian influence, as to be unwilling to arrest fhe 



SABBATH DAY. 163 

flames. The attempt is now making to create an- 
other kind of sectarianism, not less intolerant, by- 
casting odium upon those who observe the first day 
of the week after the manner of the early Chris- 
tians. 

The present constitution of Pennsylvania, minis- 
ters, in a slight degree, to this sectarianism. It pro- 
vides on this subject, "That no person who acknow- 
ledges the being of a God, and a future state of 
rewards and punishments, shall, on account of his 
religious sentiments, be disqualified to hold any 
office or place of trust or profit under this common- 
wealth.^^ From this we are of course to infer, that 
persons who do not believe in a God, and a future 
state of rewards and punishments, are incompetent 
to hold ofiice. 

This is, in fact, so far as it goes, a test act; it is 
wrong in principle, because a civil code has pro- 
perly no concern with religion. Any interference 
by the civil power with the conscience, is generally 
of no avail — if efiectual, it is tyranny. The in- 
terest both of religion and of good government is 
advanced by keeping them wholly distinct. They 
have separate provinces for their action — distinct 
duties to perform — and they are never combined 
without decreasing the efiBcacy of both. All his- 
tory bears witness to the evils arising from a 
union, in any form, of church and state. The 



164 INSTITUTION OF THE 

bitterest contentions, the worst persecutions, the 
most intense demoralization, which the world has 
ever witnessed, have arisen from this cause. We 
may fairly conclude, that in whatever degree it may 
be accomplished in this country, religion will be- 
come corrupt, and the seeds of contention and 
tyranny be infused into our government. 

Some of the other states of the Union are, at 
present, much more intolerant than Pennsylvania. 
Here, though the principle is false, the practical 
operation of the restriction, referred to above, is of 
little account. It can scarcely be called exclusive, 
because it is almost impossible that any one should 
come within its limits. 

There never was a nation found, where the people 
had not a belief in God, and in a future state of 
rewards and punishments. The Egyptians first 
built altars and temples to religion; but before 
their erection, there is evidence of the universal 
belief in God among those who were called Pagans, 
and connected with it, a belief in future retribution. 

There is no such thing as entire irreligion. Truth 
is as needful to our preservation, as blood to the 
physical frame; the whole fabric of society rests 
upon it. Every individual is, to a certain extent, 
a religious man; but what is called religion, has 
been so long prostituted to the worst purposes, and 
is so much connected with childish forms, that 



SABBATH DAY. 165 

many excellent men turn from the name instinc- 
tively. That man is not to be found, who has no 
respect for truth and virtue; and he v^ho recog- 
nises the attributes of God, believes in God, with- 
out regard to the name he bears. 

There is but one religion in the world. The 
word comes from religo, to bind anew. There is 
no false religion; this, in its nature, is impossible. 
We are familiar with Catholicism, Episcopacy, and 
many minor sects; they are merely forms of church 
government, which have no necessary connection 
with religion. They rise and fall, but religion 
remains unchanged. 

I have before quoted Mosheim for the opinion, 
that many of the ceremonies of the present Chris- 
tian churches, have originated in the forms of Pagan 
worship. The Sabbath, as at present understood, 
has been derived, in like manner, from the Jews. 
All such forms are equally inconsistent with the 
simplicity of vital truth, 

Justin Martyr, that eminent Christian father of 
w^hom I have spoken, says, "All who lived accord- 
ing to reason were Christians, even though they 
were reputed to be Atheists; for instance, Socrates, 
Heraclitus, and others among the Greeks; Abra- 
ham, Ananias, Azarias, Misael, Elias, among the 
barbarians/' (Jews being so considered by the 
Greeks and Romans.) Whilst on the other hand, 
14* 



166 INSTITUTION OF THE 

they who lived contrary to reason, were bad men, 
and enemies of Christ; that "whatever right opi- 
nions the Gentile philosophers entertained respect- 
ing the nature of the Deity, the relation in which 
man stands to him, and the duties arising out of 
that relation, were to be ascribed to the reason 
(logos) implanted in their own bosoms.^^* 

This is consistent with the doctrines of the New 
Testament — "He is not a Jew, which is one out- 
wardly; * * * * ^ * but he is a Jew, which 
is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the 
heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose 
praise is not of men, but of God/^ These views 
are sustained by every sound principle of philoso- 
phy and common sense, and they introduce us into 
universal sympathy and brotherhood with the whole 
family of man. 

The Esquimaux in the frozen regions of the 
north, and the Hottentot basking under the palm 
tree, beneath a vertical sun, so far as they are actu- 
ated by this logos, or, as Adam Smith calls it, "the 
man within the breast,^^ are as effectually saved 
from their sins, as Christians can be. The institu- 
tion of a Sabbath has never come to them; but they 
understand the great moral principles of right and 



* " Some account of the writings and opinions of Justin Mar- 
tyr, by John, Bishop of Lincoln," 



SABBATH DAY. 167 

wrong as perfectly as we do. Lord Edward Fitz- 
gerald, after travelling thousands of miles amongst 
nations which we deem barbarous, left behind him 
this sentiment: "I have seen human nature in al- 
most all its forms; it is everywhere the same, but 
the wilder it is, the more virtuous.'' See Fitz- 
gerald's Letters. 

Plutarch, the great pagan philosopher and his- 
torian, in his work against Coloteus, says: "Examine 
the face of the globe, and you may find cities un- 
fortified, unlettered, without a regular magistrate, 
or appropriated habitations; without possessions, 
property, or the use of money, and unskilled in all 
the magnificent and polite arts of life. But a city, 
without the knowledge of a God, no man can or 
ever will find." 

Some of the doctrines of the ancient Platonists 
and Stoics, appear to have been as pure as those of 
the Christian period. If all men, so far as they are 
actuated by the pure principles of religion, are 
Christians according to Justin Martyr and the New 
Testament, (and we must believe this, unless we 
believe in two religions, or that they are cut off 
from salvation altogether,) it will follow that "the 
dispensations of the law and of the gospel," are to 
be referred rather to individual minds, than to any 
particular period of time; and that the opinions of 
Jews and Pagans concerning religion, may as essen- 



168 INSTITUTION OF THE 

tially exist with us, as they did before the coming 
of Christ. Mosheim relates, as has been mentioned 
before, that many of the ceremonies of Pagan wor- 
ship were incorporated as symbols into the Chris- 
tian church, to captivate the vulgar. They seem to 
exist almost in their pristine vigour in the present 
day; it must be evident to all, that image wor- 
ship may be performed without the presence of 
idols. It will also follow, that those who rely upon 
written ordinances for religion, are in the dispensa- 
tion of the law, though they may bear the name of 
Christ. Jesus left no writings behind him as a rule 
for others — he directed none to do so; but, in the 
most beautiful and touching language, he inculcated 
everywhere the practice of virtue and truth. Those 
w^ho are not satisfied with this, will naturally incul- 
cate the necessity of Sabbath days, and in this re- 
spect may be considered rather as Jews than Chris- 
tians. 

To the Jews, the Sabbath was a festival and not a 
fast. I have adverted to Jesus dining with one of 
the chief Pharisees. The Jewish laws, as has been 
stated, were extremely severe respecting labour on 
that day; ^^no fire was to be kindled," &c.; it ap- 
pears to have been held by them purely as a day of 
relaxation, and not of austerities. Milman, in his 
history of the Jews, says, "Rich and poor, young 
and old, master and slave, met before the gate of 



SABBATH DAY. 169 

the city, and indulged in innocent mirth, or in the 
pleasures of friendly intercourse, on the Sabbath 
day/^ The first day, as has been stated above, was 
a festival amongst the early Christians; it was a 
festival during every period of the church history, 
until the time of the Puritans, and it is much to be 
regretted, that our laws upon this subject, should 
have been founded upon the fancies of a handful of 
distempered men. 

All these laws should be relaxed and finally 
erased from the statute book. Christmas, as it is 
observed in Pennsylvania, presents an instance of a 
festival day, preserved from generation to genera- 
tion by public opinion. The public offices, mar- 
kets, and other places of the kind, are closed. 
People who are conscientiously scrupulous against 
observing the day, open their stores and work as it 
suits them; no one is ofiended thereat; entire 
liberty of conscience is enjoyed. Many of the 
churches are opened and well attended; none are 
made offenders; and the cause of vital religion, in 
my opinion, would be increased by putting the first 
day of the week upon the same footing. 

One object of this treatise, has been to vindicate 
the true character of the Sabbath, and to defend it 
from desecration by sectarian influence; to ascribe 
to days a peculiar holiness, is the artifice of priest- 
craft; to enforce their observance by the civil 



170 INSTITUTION OF THE 

power, is an infringement upon liberty of con- 
science, unworthy of the spirit of our laws; the 
doctrines promulgated by the clergy, do, in fact, 
debase the Sabbath; their effect is, by enjoining a 
formal strictness, for which there is no authority, to 
drive men into the opposite extreme; a part of the 
licentiousness which distinguishes the first day of 
the week, must, I do not doubt, be ascribed to the 
intolerance of those who profess to be ministers of 
the Christian religion. In truth, one chief objec- 
tion to the day as now instituted, is the special 
sanctity which the Sabbatarian attributes to it; as 
a day of rest and relaxation — as a period for visit- 
ing and social enjoyment — as an opportunity for 
repose, from the strifes and cares of business, few 
would object to it. ^ 

If it seems best to some persons to employ the 
day in religious exercises, it is proper and right 
they should do so; but those who consider the na- 
ture of religion — that it is purely spiritualr— will 
feel, that the attempt to make one day holy and to 
fill churches by civil enactments, (for it amounts to 
that,) is worse than useless; persons who advocate 
such measures, forget there is no such thing as a 
religion of force; in fact, just so far as it is based 
upon force, its effect is, to add hypocrisy to a want of 
faith; my candid conviction is, that churches would 
be as well attended, and attended to better purpose, 



SABBATH DAY. 171 

if every law on the subject was repealed, and the 
pretensions of particular days to exclusive sanctity, 
disclaimed forever. 

If the views presented in the foregoing pages 
are correct, it follows, that the^'e should be entire 
liberty of conscience, with respect to the first day 
of the week; men have the privilege of attending 
church if it suits them; but they have no right to 
denounce others, whose views happen to diJBTer from 
their own; it should be purely a matter of con- 
science with each individual; upon one person, the 
obligation to labour on that day, may be as binding 
as it is upon another to go to church; because one 
man rests, it does not follow that all must rest. 
The nurse in the sick room must work as on other 
days; and the conductor of a steam engine, in pro- 
moting the health and happiness of a community, 
may be as wisely and as religiously employed, as 
those who wait around the couch of the invalid. 

In the sixteenth century it was said, that the re- 
creations which were allowed in the afternoon, made 
the people more attentive to their churches in the 
morning, and promoted harmony and good feeling. 
It seems to me, that all the rail-roads leading from 
our large cities, should be furnished with increased 
facilities on the first day of the week, that the 
sedentary man and the mechanic who are shut up 
during six days, should on the seventh have an 



172 INSTITUTION OF THE 

opportunity for that recreation^ which the God of 
nature has allotted to them. They should be en- 
couraged to take their families into the country, 
and thus our rail-roads might be made sources of 
great luxury and enjoyment; religion would be in- 
creased, morality promoted, and it would be emi- 
nently beneficial to the physical nature of man, 
which is made so prominent a subject of considera- 
tion in the Sabbath conventions. Directors of rail- 
roads would then have the satisfaction of knowing, 
that they had done all in their power to restore the 
day to the purposes to which it appears to have 
been devoted by the early Christians. 

The employment of chaplains by our national 
and state legislatures, may be considered to be at 
variance with the spirit of our institutions. As 
yet, such appointments have been successfully re- 
sisted in Pennsylvania. The constitution of the 
United States says, "Congress shall make no law 
respecting an establishment of religion, or pro- 
hibiting the free exercise thereof.^^ Here is an- 
other broad ground taken in favour of conscien- 
tious liberty; but this, so just and equitable to 
all, has given great offence to the Presbyterians, 
who are now deemed the principal Sabbatarians. 
In a general synod, held at Pittsburg in the year 
1834, they pretended to establish, not only the 
immorality of the constitution, as they termed 



SABBATH DAY. 173 

it, but that "it contained the infidel and anti-chris- 
tian principle, that congress shall make no law re- 
specting the establishment of religion, or prohibit- 
ing the free exercise thereof, ^^^ Every movement 
they make upon this subject, evinces that the in- 
tolerance which marked the rise of the society, is 
still rife in the present day. 

John Adams, the elder, the great expounder of 
constitutional law in this country, when President 
of the United States, wrote to the Dey of Algiers, 
that "the constitution of the United States was in 
no sense founded upon the Christian religion.'^ 
Leaving religion, of course, where it always ought 
to be left, to individual minds, and knowing no dis- 
tinction among those who led a peaceable and quiet 
life. 

The present envoy extraordinary to the court of 

* I have wished to avoid any particular reference to sects. 
But in a work called '' Pope and Presbyterians," written, as it 
is said, by one of the same class as the members of this synod, 
Presbyterianism is acknowledged tobe identified with the Sabbath. 
The author calls it " The sheet-anchor of national honour and 
prosperity." I do not understand how he can claim for his sect 
the wish to establish liberty of conscience, or how he can say 
that '' wath united voice they will join in condemning all inva- 
sion of the supremacy of the law." Who is there among them 
that will have the independence to condemn the interference of 
the missionaries with the lock-keepers referred to in these 
pages ] Or to refute the incorrect statements made by Sabbath 
conventions 1 
15 



174 INSTITUTION OF THE 

China, writes as follows: "Dr. Bridgeman is chap- 
lain to the legation in title and fact. I have deem- 
ed it essential to have religious services performed 
at the residence of the legation every Lord's day, 
and shall adhere to the practice as long as my mis- 
sion lasts.'^ I presume this is the first time that 
such an affair was ever got up officially by any of 
the representatives of the United States in a foreign 
country. 

The appropriation of money by congress for such 
a purpose, is an innovation upon former practices, 
and may be considered an infringement of the con- 
stitution of the United States. If John Adams^ 
opinion is correct, it might be well, before agents 
and officers are selected to fill important stations in 
government, that they should learn that the consti- 
tution is a civil contract, having no relation to reli- 
gious rites. The Presbyterian synods may lament 
as they please over such a state of things, but "it 
is error alone that needs the support of govern- 
ment, truth can stand by itself."* 

Every law of a religious or sectarian character, 
is so far a union of church and state; and however 
plausible may be the pretext, religion is an affair in 
which the legislature has no right to meddle, and 
such a course is always injurious, and a violation of 
the constitution. 

* Jefferson's Notes on Virginia. 



SABBATH DAY. 175 

It may be received as an axiom in government, 
that a legislature has no right to expend money 
for any purpose, for which it has no right to lay a 
tax; and if it is admitted, that the legislature of 
Pennsylvania cannot tax the people for ecclesiastical 
purposes, it will follow that it has no right to ex- 
pend money to pay chaplains. In the government 
of the United States, long usage, prior to the con- 
stitution, has sanctioned the thing as regards con- 
gress, though the whole basis of the constitution is 
opposed to the principle. In Pennsylvania and 
some other states, there has been no such practice, 
and the appointment of a chaplain here would be a 
violation of the spirit of our laws. An usurpation 
of this kind was carried into effect in New York 
some years since, and created great dissatisfaction. 
There was no apology for it either in the laws or 
customs of the state. To make it the more accept- 
able, the law stated, that the clergy of Albany, 
"without discrimination or preference,^^ should be 
appointed to the office of chaplain. It altered in 
no respect the principle, but it led to this dilemma, 
that a coloured orthodox clergyman claimed his 
equal right to pray and to be paid. White clergy- 
men were willing to pray for the blacks, but for 
blacks to pray for the whites was an unheard of 
thing, which could, under no circumstances, be sub- 
mitted to. It became a subject of negotiation, 



176 INSTITUTION OF THE 

which resulted in a compromisej by which the 
black pastor was paid from the public purse, no^ 
for saying prayers for the legislature, as other chap- 
lains didj but for not saying them.* 

These public prayers, so expressly forbidden by 
the New Testament, seem to me equally objection- 
able in principle and in detail. I know of no point 
of view in which they can be defended, but as a 
source of emolument to the clergy. Like many 
similar rites, they have probably had their remote 
origin in the lustrations of pagan worship, which 
were only partially interdicted by Constantine. 

The executive of Pennsylvania, under the ad- 
ministration of Governor Wolfe, after some decided 
repugnance, as the paper expressed, issued a pro- 
clamation for a fast, at the time the cholera prevail- 
ed in this country. There can be no doubt that it 
was a violation of the constitution of the state. It 
was neither sanctioned by law nor by usage. We 
heard no more of anything of the kind, until the 
year 1843, when a proclamation was issued by the 
then executive, appointing a day of thanksgiving. 
This is obnoxious to the same remarks. It was no 
doubt done to please misguided men. So far as it 
went, it was a union of church and state, unwar- 
ranted by the constitution, irreligious in its nature, 

* Report 1832 of Assembly of New York, No. 298. 



SABBATH DAY. 177 

and immoral in its tendencies. Can it be believed, 
by any intelligent man, that people can give thanks 
because a day has been appointed for the purpose, 
and the hour has come? People are thankful when 
they have pure and thankful hearts — it is a feeling 
that flows spontaneously from the exuberance of 
their own sensations. The law may make men 
hypocrites, but it can never make them religious. 

I have before stated, that, in the austerities of the 
Puritans relative to the first day, another day of 
recreation was appointed by act of parliament. 
Their zeal against Christmas, and other holidays, 
resulted in festival days of their own; not only 
days for public thanksgiving, but fast days were 
agreed upon by the Presbyterian assembly of di- 
vines, held at Westminster in 1645; and directions 
were also given how they should be held, how long 
they should continue, and the particular preparation 
of mind necessary thereto. This is believed to be 
the origin of the thanksgiving days of the eastern 
states, but they have no application to us, so long 
as we are at liberty to observe Christmas as we 
choose. 

These pages have been prepared without favour 
or aflection towards any class of men, and amid en- 
gagements which have prevented a more elaborate 
view of the subject; but, so far as I have gone, I 
have endeavoured simply to state the truth. I have 
15^ 



178 INSTITUTION OF THE 

examined several different translations of the Scrip- 
tures, both from the Hebrew and the Septuagint, 
with notes and annotations more extensive than the 
text; have traced, as far as my leisure would per- 
mit, various ecclesiastical histories, some of them 
voluminous and of ancient date; have paid con- 
siderable attention to the writings of the earliest 
authors in the Christian era, and to rare works, old 
and of difficult access, which treat upon this subject; 
I have read with care many of the publications of 
sectarians to sustain the institution; I have omitted 
nothing within my reach, and I have not found one 
shred of argument, or authority of any kind, that 
may not be deemed of a partial and sectarian cha- 
racter, to support the institution of the first day of 
the week as a day of peculiar holiness. But, in the 
place of argument, I have found opinions without 
number — volumes filled with idle words that have 
no truth in them. In the want of texts of Scrip- 
ture, I have found perversions; in the want of truth, 
false statements. I have seen it mentioned, that 
Justin Martyr, in his Apology, speaks of Sunday 
as a holy day; that Eusebius, bishop of Cesarea, who 
lived in the fourth century, establishes the fact of 
the transfer of the seventh to the first day by Christ 
himself. These things are not true — these authors 
say no such thing. But there are none to contra- 
dict — the volumes are not at hand, and they pass for 



SABBATH DAY. 179 

truth. I have seen other early authors referred to, 
as establishing the same point, but they are equally 
false — there is no such thing to be found in them. 
On the contrary, evidence has accumulated upon me 
as I have pursued the investigation, showing exactly 
the reverse. These statements are likely to be con- 
tradicted — they are contradicted every day, and that 
mostly by men who ought to know better, but who 
have a great stake at issue in maintaining the pecu- 
liar holiness of the first day of the week; but they 
are true, however much men may deny them. 

Having thus endeavoured to follow the Sabbata- 
rians through some of their devious wanderings, I 
come finally to consider the objection to their argu- 
ment, which arises from the entire accountability 
of man. 

This is a doctrine worth all the rest; books may 
perish, but this will endure forever. It is not limited 
to one age or sect, but applies to every individual 
in the world; as people attend to it, they under- 
stand the internal nature of truth, that it depends 
not upon the ingenuity of man — upon no books, 
however excellent they may be — upon no rules, 
which the most refined sects may establish. 

This doctrine has been taught by all the sages of 
ancient and modern times; it is taught in our books, 
in our schools, and in our meeting-houses; above all, 
it is the teaching of our own bosoms. If, then, it 



ISO INSTITUTION OF THE 

is true, it leaves no room for one day or time to be 
more holy than another. We are born for active 
exertions; without them, we should perish; and we 
perform our duty to God as well when we take care 
of our physical frames, as when we perfect our 
moral character. There is no true ground for the 
distinction between secular and religious affairs. 
Every action of our lives is a moral action; every- 
thing involves religion. 

There is a principle of harmony throughout the 
universe. 

In physical affairs, it may be traced from the 
order that marks the solar system, to the minutest 
insect that crawls on the ground. In all the ope- 
rations of men, there is a striving after harmony, 
an effort after perfection. The child who makes 
his tiny coach, and the artificer of the splendid steam 
ship, are actuated by the same principle: it is this 
harmony, applied to mind, which forms the perfec- 
tion of the human character; so far as it prevails, 
every man is a religious man, and every act of his 
life is an act of worship. 

Everything that we do has relation to this great 
harmony of the world. We cannot fail to perceive 
that the greatest events hang upon the most trivial 
causes. 

Shall these causes, on which so much depends, 
be considered of no account? or who shall draw 



SABBATH DAY. 181 

the line of distinction? it cannot be done, it does 
not exist. But we can cut the knot we cannot 
untie; make every day a day of religion, and feel 
that we are accountable for every action of our 
lives. So far as man does this, he comes into the 
universal harmony of truth. Let me not be told 
that these principles are adapted only to men of 
refinement; it is not so; they are applicable to all. 
All feel them according to their capacity, though 
they may never have thought of giving language to 
their sensations. 

Feelings of this character, put an end at once to 
the distinction of sects and days; they embrace all 
the religion which exists in the world. The means 
which would be most likely to produce that refor- 
mation so much needed in society, would be to im- 
press man with the idea that he is just as account- 
able one day as another; that the sanctuary of the 
Most High is ever open in his own bosom; that 
every place is God's temple, and that his altar 
should be erected in man's own heart. 



APPENDIX 



Extract from Bishop Whitens Lectures on the 
Catechism, 

The blessing of the seventh day is mentioned in 
the twelfth chapter of Genesis, at the closing of the 
act of creation; but this is thought by some to have 
been done without any intimation of an appoint- 
ment in Paradise, and only to account for its being 
made to the children of Israel in the wilderness. 
Certain it is, that we meet with no instance of an 
actual hallowing of the Sabbath, until w^e reach the 
16th chapter of Exodus: and the manner of the 
giving and the receiving of the institution, carries 
strong appearances of its not being familiar to the 
Israelites. This seems not easily to be accounted 
for, if it had been observed by their patriarchal 
forefathers, of which also, there is not a hint in 
their history, ^ * * 

In regard to its duration, it appears evident, that 
so far as regarded the authority of the injunction 
to the Israelites, and unless some new obligation 
can be shown, the institution ceased, even in rela- 
tion to Jewish converts to Christianity, at the de- 
struction of their religious polity, and that it was 
never extended to the Gentile Christians: of this 
there shall be given but one proof, it being decisive 



184 APPENDIX. 

to the point. It is in the 2nd chapter of Collos- 
sians: — "Let no man therefore judge you in meat 
or in drink, or in respect of an holy day, or of the 
new moon, or of the Sabbath days,^^ Here the 
Sabbath is considered 2.^ falling with the whole 
body of the ritual laws of Moses, And this may 
show the reason, on which the church avoids the 
calling of the day of public worship, " the^abbath.'^ 
It is never so called in the New Testament: and in 
the primitive church, the term " Sabbatising^^ car- 
ried with it the reproach of a leaning to the abro- 
gated observance of the law. * ^ * 



Extracts from Duties Towards God, by Wil- 
liam Paley, D. D., Subdeacon of Lincoln, Pre- 
bendary of St. Paul's, and Rector of Bishop 
Wearmouth. 

Chap. Yii,-—Of the Scripture Account of Sabbati- 
cal Institutions, 

In my opinion, the transaction in the wilderness, 
Exod. xvi. was the first actual institution of the 
Sabbath. For, if the Sabbath had been instituted 
at the time of the creation, as the w^ords in Genesis 
ii. 3, may seem at first sight to import, and observ- 
ed all along from that time to the departure of the 
Jews out of Egypt, a period of about two thousand 
five hundred years, it appears unaccountable that no 
mention of it, no occasion of even the obscurest 
allusion to it, should occur, either in the general 
history of the world before the call of Abraham, 



APPENDIX. 185 

which contains, we admit, only a few memoirs of 
its early ages, and those extremely abridged; or, 
which is more to be wondered at, in that of the 
lives of the three first Jewish patriarchs, which in 
many parts of the account, is sufficiently circum- 
stantial and domestic. Nor is there in the passage 
above, from the 16th chapter of Exodus, any inti- 
mation that the Sabbath, then appointed to be ob- 
served, was only the revival of an ancient institu- 
tion, which had been forgotten or suspended; nor 
is any such neglect imputed either to the inhabitants 
of the old world, or to any part of the family of 
Noah; nor lastly, is any permission recorded to 
dispense with the institution during the captivity 
of the Jews in Egypt, or on any other public 
emergency. This interpretation is strongly sup- 
ported by a passage of the prophet Ezekiel, where 
the Sabbath is plainly spoken of as given, and what 
else can that mean, but as Jirst instituted in the 
wilderness, "Wherefore I caused them to go forth 
out of the land of Egypt, and brought them into 
the wilderness; and I gave them my statutes, and 
showed them my judgments, which, if a man do, 
he shall even live in them ; moreover, also, I gave 
them my Sabbaths, to be a sign between me and 
them, that they might know that I am the Lord 
that sanctify them.^^ Ezek. xx. 10, 11, 12. Nehe- 
miah also recounts i\ie promulgation of the Sabba- 
tical law, amongst the transactions in the wilder- 
ness. "Thou camest down also upon Mount Sinai, 
and spakest with them from heaven, and gavest 
them right judgments, and true laws, good statutes 
and commandments, and makes t knoivn unto them 
thy holy Sabbath,^^ Neh. ix. 12. These observa- 
tions being premised, we approach the question, — 
Whether the fourth command, by which the Jewish 

16 



186 APPENDIX. 

Sabbath was instituted, extend to us? If the divine 
command was actually delivered at the creation, it 
was addressed no doubt to the whole human species; 
if it was published for the first time in the wilder- 
ness, then it was directed to the Jewish people 
alone. The latter opinion admits, and prima facie 
induces a belief, that the Sabbath ought to be con- 
sidered as a part of the peculiar law of Jewish 
policy, which belief receives great confirmation 
from the following arguments: 

The Sabbath is described as a sign between God 
and the people of Israel: — "Wherefore the children 
of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the 
Sabbath, throughout their generations for a perpetual 
covenant; it is a sig7i between me and the chil- 
dren of Israel for ever.'^ Exod. xxxi. 16, 17. 
" Wherefore I caused them to go forth out of the 
land of Egypt, and brought them into the wilder- 
ness. Moreover I also gave them my Sabbaths to 
be a sign between me and them,^^ Ezek. xx. 12. 
["Thou camest down also from Mount Sinai, and 
viakest known unto them (i. e. to the children of 
Israel) thy holy Sabbath.^^ Neh. ix. 12.] Now 
it does not seem easy to understand how the Sab- 
bath could be a sign between God and the people 
of Israel^ unless the observance of it was peculiar 
to that people, and designed to be so. The distinc- 
tion of the Sabbath is in its nature as much a posi- 
tive ceremonial institution, as that of many other 
seasons which were appointed by the Levitical law 
to be kept holy, and to be observed by a strict rest; 
as the first and seventh days of unleavened bread — 
the feast of Pentecost, the feast of the tabernacles 
— and in the 23d chapter of Exodus, the Sabbath 
and these are recited together. 

If the fourth commandment, by which the Sab- 



APPENDIX. 187 

hath was instituted, be binding on Christians, it 
must bind as to the day^ the duties, and the pe- 
nalty, in none of which it is received. The ob- 
servation of the Sabbath was not one of the articles 
enjoined by the Apostles, in the 15th chapter of the 
Acts, upon them, "which yrom among the Gen- 
tiles ivere turned to God,^^ 

St. Paul evidently appears to have considered the 
Sabbath 2iS part of the Jewish ritual, not binding 
on Christians as such: "Let no man therefore 
judge you in meat or in drink, or in respect of an 
holy day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath 
days:^ Col. ii. 16, 17. 

A cessation upon \\\^ first day of the week from 
labour, beyond the time of attendance upon public 
worship, is not intimated in any passage of the New 
Testament; nor did Christ or bis apostles deliver, 
that we know of, any command to their disciples 
for a discontinuance upon that day, of the com- 
mon offices of their professions. 



Extracts from "A Critical and Practical Ex- 
position OP the Pentateuch,^^ with Notes, 
Theological, Philosophical, Critical, and Histori- 
cal. ^ Folio. 

Exodus xx. 8. Remember the Sabbath day. 

Some think this word Remember is prefixed to 
the fourth commandment to denote either the im- 

* This book is characterized by Home, in his Introduction to 
the Bible, as having been " compiled from the labours of the 
best interpreters^ ancient and modernP 



188 APPENDIX. 

portance or antiquity of it. But it rather seems to 
intimate a difference between it and the other pre- 
cepts; as the other commandments carry their own 
reason along with them, they are delivered in a 
peremptory style, but this being of positive insti- 
tution^ is introduced with a Remember ; and that 
it might take faster hold of the Jews, contains in 
its bosom the reason of its institution. See Spencer 
de Leg. Hebr. lib. 1. c. iv. s. 10. However, though 
this precept be not of moral obligation, yet it has 
the same end as the other precepts of ih^ first table; 
for its primary design was the Extirpation of 
Idolatry, — which suggests the reason why the vio- 
lation of the Sabbath was punished with so much 
severity by the law of Moses. This precept is in 
a particular manner called a Covenant, because their 
observing the Sabbath was a badge or sign of that 
covenant, whereby they engaged to be the wor- 
shippers of the true God, and so were distinguished 
from the idolatrous nations. "It is a sign between 
me and the children of Israel for ever.'^ Exod. 
xxxi. 17. See also Ezek. xx. 12. 20, which is 
thought a proof that the institution of the Sab- 
bath was owing to Moses, and that the patriarchs 
were not obliged thereby, nor did practise it. We 
may observe further, that the law concerning the 
Sabbath is mentioned apart from the body of their 
laws, in the fore cited passages, and Nehemiah ix. 
13, 14, as being in its nature different from the 
rest; all the other precepts being of moral obliga- 
tion; but this command, as to the determinate time 
and manner of performing the general duties here 
enjoined, being founded on no obligation antece- 
dent to the Lawgiver\s will; — that a seventh day 
should be assigned, and a total cessation from labour 
observed, is plainly of positive ritual institution, 



APPENDIX. 189 

obligatory only upon the Jews, to whom it made 
part of their ceremonial law^ that yoke of bond- 
age which was imposed upon them for the hardness 
of their hearts; but that Christians are discharged 
from the obligation of this law is plain, from the 
words of St. Paul, Col. ii. 16, 17, ''Let no m,an^ 
therefore J judge you in meat^ or in drink , or in 
respect of an holy day^ or of the new m^oon^ or 
of the SABBATH DAYS: wMch are a shadow of 
things to come,^^ 

What Moses says. Gen. ii. 3, is only by way of 
anticipation, and has a reference to a law that was 
not enacted till some ages afterwards. And what 
makes this the more probable is, that in all the 
writings of Moses before the commencement of the 
Hebrew polity, there is not so much as the most 
distant hint of a Sabbath observed or known. See 
Foster^ s Sermons^ voL iv, serm, ii, JBarrow, ib, 
Le Clerc in Exod. xvi. 23, These reasonings prove 
the Jewish seventh day Sabbath, to be abrogated 
with the rest of their cerem^onial institutions. 

To keep it holy,'] The word Kadash, to hallow 
OY keep holy^ does not always signify to separate a 
thing to religion, as sanctificare does in Latin, but 
is taken in a more extensive sense, for any separa- 
tion whatever, from a common to a peculiar use, 
especially when that use is instituted by God. 

In it thou shall not do any work,] Thus we 
see that the whole of the commandment relates to 
nothing else but a day of rest (by the Jews) from 
secular employment and bodily labour, without any 
explicit declaration, that it was originally conse- 
crated among the Jews, to any other or higher pur- 
poses of religion. All that Moses enjoins on that 
day to the Jews, besides a cessation from secular 
employment, is the additional sacrifice of two lambs, 

16* 



190 APPENDIX. 

over and above the daily sacrifice. Numb, xxviii. 
6, 10. 

In short, the Sabbath was celebrated like other 
festivals, with feasting, dancing, and other holi- 
day recreations, which Philo calls iKctfimi^ ^Tn^vfjuKig, 
which in time degenerated into licentiousness, and 
for which St. Augustin censures the Jews. 



Extracts from "The British Critic, Quarter- 
ly Theological Review, and Ecclesiastical 
Recorder.^' No. XIII. January, 1830. 

The Jews, who, in this respect at least, may be 
admitted to be the best interpreters of their own 
law, uniformly maintained, that the Sabbath, like 
circumcision, was given exclusively to them, as the 
sign of the covenant which God had made with 
them; that it belonged, in no sense, to the Gen- 
tiles; and that it was not lawful even for the prose- 
lytes of the gate to observe it. "It is a sign be- 
tween me and the children of Israel f or ever, ^^ 
Exod. xxxi. 17. "Moreover, aLso, I gave them my 
Sabbaths to be a sign between me and them,^^ 
Ezek. xxi. 12. "And hallow my Sabbaths; and 
they shall be a sign between m,e and you,^^ Ezek. 
xxi. 20, When that covenant, of which the Sab- 
bath was a sign, was abrogated, the Sabbath itself 
was of course abrogated with it. This is con- 
fessed; but it is said, that the observance of the 
seventh day Sabbath is transferred, in the Christian 
church, to the first day of the week. We ask, by 
what authority? and are much mistaken, if an ex-' 



APPENDIX. 191 

amination of all the texts in the New Testament, 
in which the first day of the week, or Lord's day, 
is mentioned, does not prove that there is no divine 
or apostolical precept enjoining its observance, nor 
any certain evidence from Scripture that it was, in 
fact, so observed in the time of the apostles. 

With respect to the Jewish Sabbath, the conduct 
of our Lord, who, be it remembered, was born 
under the law, was very reniarkahle. We learn 
from many passages in the Gospels, that "it was his 
custom'^ to frequent the synagogue on the Sabbath 
days: but, in all other instances, he appears to have 
treated the scrupulous observance of the Sabbath 
with studied disrespect. The diseases which he 
miraculously cured were all chronical; but he en- 
couraged the sick to come to him to be healed on 
the Sabbath, though they might just as well have 
waited till the morrow; and if they lay on couches, 
he commanded them, in every instance, to carry 
them away. Thus, too, he justified his disciples in 
gathering the ears of corn on the Sabbath to satisfy 
their hunger, though their doing so w^as unques- 
tionably a breach of the Sabbath; and this he did 
for two very important reasons: first, to show that 
the Sabbath w^as made for man, and not man for the 
Sabbath: and, secondly, that he, the Son of Man, 
as Lord of the Sabbath, had the same power to ab- 
rogate it, as he had at first to command its observ- 
ance. 

It deserves also to be noticed, that though, in his 
Sermon on the Mount, and on many other occa- 
sions, he enforced and enlarged the other precepts 
of the Decalogue, he never enjoined the observa- 
tion of the Sabbath on his disciples, nor gave them 
the slightest intimation that he designed the obser- 
vation of it, under any modifications, to be con- 



192 APPENDIX. 

tinued in his church. Accordingly^ we shall search 
the Scriptures in vain, either for any apostolical 
precept appointing the first day of the week to be 
observed in the place of the Jewish Sabbath, or for 
any unequivocal proof that the first Christians so 
observed it. 

There are only three, or, at most, four places of 
Scripture in which the first day of the week is 
mentioned, after our Lord^s ascension; and only 
one of these from which it can be certainly inferred 
that the disciples met on that day for public wor- 
ship. The two first passages are John xx. 19, and 
perhaps v. 2^^ which merely tell us, that, on the 
first day of the week, the disciples were assembled 
with closed doors for fear of the Jews. From these 
texts alone, we could not, with any safety, conclude 
that the disciples met together for any religious 
purpose. The next passage is in Acts xx. 7: 
"Upon the first day of the week, when the dis- 
ciples came together to break bread, Paul preached 
unto them.'^ All that St. Luke here tells us plain- 
ly is, that on a particular occasion the Christians of 
Troas met together, on the first day of the week, 
to celebrate the eucharist and to hear Paul preach. 
This is the only place in Scripture in which the 
first day of the week is in any way connected with 
any act of public worship; and he who would cer- 
tainly infer from this solitary instance, that the first 
day of every week was consecrated by the apostles 
to religious purposes, must be far gone in the art of 
drawing universal conclusions from particular pre- 
mises. From 1 Cor. xvi. 1, 2, we learn that St. 
Paul had given orders to the churches of Galatia 
and Corinth to make collections for the poor on the 
first day of the week; and in Rev. i. 10, St. John 
tells us, "I was in the spirit on the Lord's day.'^ 



APPENDIX, 193 

This is all the positive information which the 
Scriptures afford respecting the observance of the 
first day of the week. 

The want of all apostolical precept, either en- 
joining the observance of the Lord's day in lieu of 
the Jewish Sabbath, or directing in what manner 
and for what purposes it ought to be observed, is 
the more remarkable when we consider that the 
great importance which the Mosaic law attached to 
the times and circumstances of divine worship, 
made it more necessary for the apostles to notice 
these points, especially in their addresses to their 
Jewish converts. But neither in the Epistle to the 
Hebrews, nor in any of the exhortations to the 
practical duties of Christianity, with which most of 
his epistles are concluded, has St. Paul once men- 
tioned this subject; neither did the apostles, in their 
council at Jerusalem, think proper to include the 
mention of the Lord's day among those things 
which it was necessary for the Gentiles to observe. 



Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History. 
Vol. L p. 166. 

From this source arose various rites among the 
Jews, which many Christians, especially those who 
live in the eastern countries, observe religiously at 
this very day. We shall take no more than a brief 
view of those rites and ceremonies, since a particu- 
lar consideration of them would lead us into end- 
less discussions, and open a field too vast to be 
comprehended in such a compendious history as we 
here give of the Christian church. The first Chris- 



194 APPENDIX. 

tians assembled, for the purpose of divine worship, 
in private houses, in caves, and in vaults where the 
dead w^ere buried. Their meetings were on the 
first day of the week; and, in some places, they 
assembled also upon the seventh, which was cele- 
brated by the Jews. Many also observed the fourth 
day of the week, on which Christ was betrayed; 
and the sixth, which was the day of his crucifixion. 
The hour of the day appointed for holding these 
religious assemblies, varied according to the differ- 
ent times and circumstances of the church; but it 
was generally in the evening, after sunset, or in 
the morning, before dawn. 



THE END. 



Since the foregoing work was written, accounts 
of the annual celebrations of the landing of the 
"Pilgrim Fathers'^ have been published, redolent 
of panegyric on their virtues. 

Descended in a direct line from the old English 
stock of Puritans, my predilections might naturally 
be in their favour, if truth sustained me therein. 
They were among the great actors in the drama of 
the revolution begun by Henry VIII. in his separa- 
tion from the Romish See; and though increased 
civil liberty resulted from the struggle, yet they un- 
hesitatingly trampled on the rights of others, they 
certainly are not entitled to the character of being 
the champions of civil and religious liberty. 

The true history of the New England Puritans 
is yet to be written; they did not even belong to 
that party who were professedly most anxious for 
the promotion of civil liberty; and the severity of 
their discipline and laws has extended far into the 
present century. 

Bancroft has, in my apprehension, given an ex- 
tremely partial account of them. He has stated 
that there were three victims to the delusion on 
the subject of witchcraft: it appears from the au- 
thority of Hutchinson, and Chief Justice Marshall, 
that there were nineteen; and his palliations of 
these and other cruelties, seem to me unworthy of 
a true historian. The account he has given of 
Roger Williams, and of the benefits of the govern- 
ment of Rhode Island, forms a beautiful contrast to 
the picture, which even his partiality exhibits, of 
that of the Pilgrim Fathers of Massachusetts. 



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